Until We Meet Again
by Maria Albert
Summary: Unlimited: Hinomiya promised he'd return, but will his home remain? A gift he sends stands to change the predestined fate of the world, but hope is shattered when Hyoubu's family is attacked. The Queen has been dethroned, but can B.A.B.E.L. help P.A.N.D.R.A. recover what they have lost, or will Hyoubu's fury incinerate the world? Hyoubu x Hinomiya, Magi x Yoh, Akashi x Minamoto.
1. Chapter 1

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Prelude – A Promise

Andy Hinomiya had known it wouldn't be easy to say goodbye to the friends and comrades of P.A.N.D.R.A., who had somehow become the family he'd always longed for, and never thought he'd have. He'd thought saying goodbye to Kyousuke Hyoubu would be the hardest. Hyoubu was a father to the others, save for Magi, to whom he was a brother, sometimes a much older one and conversely, other times a much younger one. But to Andy… part of why he was leaving was to figure out exactly who Hyoubu was to him: father, brother, or something more? It would be impossible to discover if he stayed, especially with Yoh Fujiura distracting him, when he needed to determine who Yoh was as well: a brother or a potential lover?

He had other reasons for leaving, though. Andy wanted to return to the government orphanage that had raised him and an entire generation of other unwanted and unloved psychic children. He had been an outcast even there, marked as a freak on sight by his heterochromatic eyes, the right one gray and the left gold, scoring as psychic on every government test, yet displaying no discernible power. How many times had he heard the other children demand, "Get away from us, freak! You make us sick!" and not realized they had meant it literally, that his power counteracting theirs was physically making them feel ill?

He'd been bullied and beaten his entire childhood, until he learned to not only fight back, but to be tough enough to take on an entire group of attackers singlehandedly and win. It had been a valuable skill set for later in life, during his brief and disastrous stint in the military.

His gold left eye had since turned jet black, the price for saving Hyoubu, for miraculously being able to seal away the bulk of the powers of the man who had formerly been the most powerful psychic on earth. It was the height of irony that Andy's only power was to rob others of theirs, and that the monumental act that had raised him to the level of most powerful psychic in the world had simultaneously robbed him of that power, unless it was merely lying dormant within him. Regardless, he was of no real use to his friends like this. Worse, he was a liability.

The Director had done as promised, after he was convinced he'd killed Andy: he'd removed all trace of Andy every working for the U.S.E.I. as a Special Investigator. To the world, Andy Hinomiya was a dishonorably discharged U.S. vet, an escaped convict form a foreign psychic jail, and a member of the criminal organization P.A.N.D.R.A.: a wanted fugitive. Worse, he and Hyoubu were both accused of murdering the Director. To Hyoubu, it was just another body added to his horrifically impressive count, but Andy had never killed anyone. He still hadn't: the lab's automated defense system and Hyoubu's former commanding officer held that dubious distinction. But because of that and his P.A.N.D.R.A. affiliation, he was now on the Most Wanted list of the world's psychic criminals, his face and statistics in every international police and government database. He needed to not only lay low, but to try to clear his maligned name.

More, he needed to find out what that name meant. Who was he? Who had his parents been? His father's last name was Hinomiya, he knew he was of Japanese descent, but he had no idea what race his mother was, or what her maiden name was, or even what their first names had been. Did he have siblings he'd never met? Were his parents normals, or psychics posing as normals, to fit into the normal world? Were they alive or dead? Would they care whether he was?

"You're leaving?" Yugiri whispered, more denial and accusation in her quavering voice than question, her eyes filling with tears and her lips quivering. For the first time Andy truly felt like the lowlife criminal he was now accused of being.

He knelt down in front of the tiny girl who had somehow become such an enormous part of his world. "Only for a while. Not forever," he assured her. "I'll be back. I promise. Pinky swear," he said, holding out his pinky, as he'd seen other kids do, when he was little. No one had ever wanted to swear with him, to even touch him, of course. He buried the old pain deep in the cemetery in his mind, along with the rotting corpses of all the other childhood sorrows that still sometimes, zombielike, came back to life and threatened to bury him.

Yugiri looked at him utterly perplexed.

"It's something children do," he explained. "You hold out your pinky, and curl it around mine, and shake it, like shaking hands."

She shook her head silently, and he was surprised how much the refusal hurt, but his own pain was forgotten when the tears welling in her eyes started spilling down her cheeks.

He looked around desperately at the others, but they were glaring at him, for making Yugiri cry. Magi had taken the news of his leaving stoically, Momiji took it in stride, Yoh pretended not care, and Momotaro had been indignant, but Yugiri was devastated.

Andy lifted his left hand towards her helplessly, and his frantic eyes fell on the military watch on his wrist. He'd kept it for reasons of practicality, after removing the tracking device inside and joining the U.S.E.I., because it was reliable and nearly indestructible, but also it was a constant reminder of why he hated psychics. He quickly unfastened the strap, and took it off. "Hold out your hand," he instructed.

Intrigued, she did as he asked, holding out her right hand, instead of her left. He carefully wrapped the leather strap around her narrow wrist, and fastened it at the tightest setting, thankful for the slender wrists that had been a bane of his existence, both as a child and adult. It hung down loosely off her wrist, but her hand was big enough that it wouldn't slip off.

"I'm lending you my watch. It's my only memento from when I was in the U.S. military. It's very special, because they only issue these watches to soldiers in their Psychic Squads. Normals aren't allowed to wear them." Of course it was to track them and monitor them, another way to brand them as freaks, but Yugiri didn't need to know that.

Fortunately, although he couldn't actively use his power anymore, after sealing Hyoubu's away, it yet hummed along as background low level interference, so those with telepathy still couldn't read his thoughts and those with psychometry couldn't read his possessions. He wasn't certain whether the active portion of his power would be gone until Hyoubu's was released again, or whether he just needed time to recover. He wasn't even sure which he hoped it would be.

"This way, you'll know I'm going to come back, because I want my watch back. And when I come back, I'll bring you a watch, to trade for it, one just like it, so we can have the same one, the way you and Hyoubu have the same charm," he added in inspiration, not having any idea how he was going to acquire another one, but determined to do so. Unlike the people from his past, the ones he'd always despised, he never made promises he couldn't keep.

Her eyes widened and she clasped her left hand tightly about the outer strap, holding her right hand against her chest, against her heart. "Thank you, Andy," she said softly, and to his overwhelming relief, her lips slipped into a small smile. It was like seeing the sun against after a week of storms. A palpable weight lifted off of his chest.

He gave her a hug, and she hugged him back fiercely, and he found himself swallowing hard, repeatedly, and forcibly reminding himself he had valid reasons for leaving, one of the most important among them that Yugiri would be safer with him gone, at least for a little while."Until we meet again, Yugiri," he whispered.

He cleared his throat and stood, exchanging a few final words with everyone in the room. "Say goodbye to Hyoubu for me, alright?" he asked the others. He was relieved his voice didn't sound as scratchy as his throat suddenly felt. He needed to go, quickly, or he wouldn't be able to leave at all. He turned, Yoh's and Yugiri's faces branded in his mind.

The ride in the elevator was mercifully brief, and he walked quickly through the lobby and then away from the hotel. It was inevitable that he'd meet Hyoubu on the sidewalk, heading towards the hotel as he left it. Fortunately, Hyoubu seemed to understand he had to go, even if he didn't quite know all the reasons why, and the words they exchanged were brief and not as painful as he'd dreaded they would be.

Andy took a deep breath and headed out into the city, for the moment at least easily blending in with the crowd, feeling like a shadowy shark swimming unnoticed below the school of oblivious normals.

0 0 0

Chapter 1 – False Alarm

Hyoubu's hands were balled into fists, outwardly in rage, but in reality to minimize their shaking, to hide as much raw emotion as he could from his crew, as the disturbing words continued to crawl across the bottom of the U.S. newsfeed for the fourth time, the program Yoh had written to bring ESP news to their immediate attention this time doing so with chilling ramifications: _Special Report - Moments ago, one of the highest ranking individuals on the C.R.I.M.E. (CRiminal International Most-wanted ESP) list was killed in a daring U.S.E.I. assault. Stay tuned for this late-breaking story, as it unfolds._

The identity of the criminal had yet to be released. Magi was hard at work pulling in as many newsfeeds as possible onto the two dozen monitors strategically placed on the ship's bridge of the new _Queen of Catastrophe_ , but information so far was sketchy at best. Yoh was attempting to enter the B.A.B.E.L. mainframe through one of the precious emergency use backdoors he'd installed. Japan and the U.S. were allies, but also, B.A.B.E.L. had worked more than one mission with the U.S.E.I. If anyone knew more, they would.

 _Not Hinomiya. Please not Hinomiya._ Hyoubu was drowning in a sea of horrific images, both real and imagined, memories of the bloody bodies of the entire psychic squad he'd fought beside in the War mixed with those of Hinomiya gunned down, killed as they had been. His squad had been betrayed and murdered by the commander they had trusted: his only friends, his family, dead, all dead.

 _Not again. Not Hinomiya. It can't be. My fault, it's my fault. I never should have let him leave. I can't lose him._ "I want a name!" Hyoubu demanded unreasonably, knowing they were working as hard and fast as they could, that they were almost as anxious as he was: Hinomiya was their family, too.

"Hah! I knew it couldn't be him!" Yoh stated triumphantly, his voice thick with relief. "It's Gregor Malayev, one of only six non-psychics to make their list. He and the other five are part of the terrorist organization Normal People. B.A.B.E.L. has an entire dossier on him. He made the Most Wanted list for bombing the New Hope Elementary School, that Comerican school even the regular normals were protesting, because they had such a high number of esper children enrolled. The school was attempting to show normals and espers could peacefully coexist. Their goal was to have all esper children enrolled in school, even the Level 4 through 7 who are currently banned in almost every country."

Yoh paraphrased off whatever B.A.B.E.L. report he was viewing, though they all knew the facts of that horrific crime. "The entire building was leveled, resulting in the deaths of 236 children and 83 teachers and staff, and the injury of 417 other children. Only 652 escaped without injury. It would have been a lot worse, if it wasn't for their teachers and those esper kids. Not a single adult survived and 27 of the kids he killed were psychics. From the survivor reports, without exception the adults and esper kids, and even a number of normal kids, tried to shield and protect their classmates from the multiple blasts and then tried to aid as many as they could escape from the rubble, lifting beams, and even holding up collapsing walls and ceilings so the others could escape, until they were eventually crushed when their powers or the structural strength failed. That bastard deserved to die."

"You're sure it wasn't Hinomiya?" Hyoubu demanded. "That B.A.B.E.L. didn't plant that information for you to find?"

"No, Major. CNN just released his name as well, and there's a picture. It's Malayev," Magi confirmed, relief audible in his normally impassive voice.

Hyoubu exhaled a shaky breath, forcing his muscles to relax, unclenching his fists, straightening his jacket. "Tch. I told you it wasn't him," he scoffed, in both Magi's and Yoh's general direction. "I'll be in my cabin." Without another word he teleported.

As soon as he arrived in his cabin, he clenched the fabric of his jacket over his heart, thankfully out of habit, not need. His heart felt fine, thanks to his Queen, and her generous transfusion and Andy sealing away the bulk of his power, which had been destroying him, in spite of his limiter. But he wasn't entirely pain free. His palms were stinging. He held out his hands, palms upward, frowning, and saw the bloody little crescents gouged into each, from his nails. He'd clenched his fists so tightly, he'd bled. He mended the minor damage psychically, watching the blood disappear.

The bloody images of Hinomiya, the ones his imagination had created, weren't so easy to dispel, as they filled his mind again. He went resolutely to the nightstand by his bed, and took out the personnel folder he kept there. It was thicker than their usual files. Magi had been particularly thorough, trying to convince him Hinomiya was a danger to them, and he'd added a number of candid shots of the man, which Hyoubu had himself added to, in the weeks Hinomiya was with them.

He opened the folder, to Hinomiya's serious face. He flipped to some of the other photos, the ones of him falling back into the pool, after Hyoubu pushed him, the ones of him frantically escaping the shark he'd teleported into the swimming pool, the ones of him playing pool with Yoh. His lips quirked in a fond smile, each picture calming him, and allowing him to suppress the false images. His folder on Hinomiya was nearly as extensive as his file on the Queen, and he'd known Hinomiya for a far shorter time.

0 0 0

Yoh was scowling at the spot Hyoubu had vanished from. "Do you think the Old Man's going to be OK, now that he knows it wasn't Hinomiya?" he asked Magi in concern. Even old as he was, since he hadn't allowed his cells to age, they hadn't truly worried about Hyoubu too much, when he wasn't doing anything particularly dangerous, until they found out he'd had a terminal medical condition that he'd been keeping the severity of from them. He'd played it off as a minor problem, when they'd seen the pills he'd been taking, rather than the death sentence it had been. Magi still hadn't quite forgiven Hyoubu for hiding the truth from him. He was even more of a mother hen now to the Major than he had been.

Just the thought made Yoh frown. He knew Magi wasn't in love with the Major, that Magi loved him like a brother, not a potential lover, but Magi didn't pay half the attention to him that he did to the Old Man. He still thought of him as that thumb-sucking little kid he and the Major had rescued from the war zone he'd been orphaned in.

"He's fine," Magi assured him. "Did B.A.B.E.L. realize you were in their system, or will we be able to use that backdoor again?"

"They didn't catch me," Yoh claimed confidently.

"Don't get cocky. One of these days, you'll think they didn't, and it will be a trap. Don't use that backdoor again, unless there's no other option," Magi cautioned.

"Who's the hacker here, you or me?" Yoh scoffed.

"You're forgetting who taught you," Magi chastised.

"I surpassed you a long time ago," Yoh gloated.

Magi scowled. "If I did nothing but play on the computer all day the way you do, I'd be better."

Yoh glared. "I'm not playing! I'm… never mind. Maybe if you got your face out of that stupid accounting program once in a while, you'd be competition." Magi didn't know about his website and graphic design business. No one did, not even the Major.

It had started out as a way to create backdoors in a number of useful businesses, ones they could spy on or rob, but it had grown from there. He'd designed hundreds of websites and logos; his personal hidden bank account now numbered in the tens of millions, since all his living expenses were paid by P.A.N.D.R.A. He was keeping it secret, so he could thumb his nose at them one day, if they pissed him off enough that he needed to leave. He wasn't ever going to be helpless and homeless again.

Magi glared. "If it wasn't for me, you and everyone else here wouldn't eat. It takes money to keep an organization like P.A.N.D.R.A., not to mention this ship, afloat. Our other ship was insured, but not against government attack. We lost $300 million when she sank, and that was just the value of the ship itself, not the contents. But we didn't just lose the vessel, we lost the library, our clothes, our electronics, all our possessions. Everything's had to be replaced. And on top of that, this ship cost $200 million, and it's not quite as big or impressive. You all act like it's just business as usual, but a hit that large is going to take time to recover from."

Yoh blinked. He didn't think he'd ever seen Magi angry, except for when the Old Man did something reckless and endangered himself. But right now, his hair was undulating. It was… sexy. Magi was always so damned impassive and restrained, it pissed him off. Now he looked primal, the full force of his power barely contained. It was a good look on him.

He found his eyes roving over the older man. He'd admired him in a bathing suit before, he had a hot body for such an old stick in the mud, but he'd honestly never looked twice at him in a suit. He realized now that regardless, Magi was definitely hot. Surprisingly, the suit actually added to his attractiveness now somehow, when in the past, Yoh and the others had always teased him, trying to get him to dress more casually.

"Forget it. You don't care. No one does," Magi snapped in disgust, brushing his hand through his hair in frustration, apparently taking his silent admiration as disinterest or lack of concern.

Yoh frowned, as he studied Magi's face and noticed the dark circles under his eyes, and tired lines he didn't remember ever seeing before. "What's wrong?" he asked, reaching out impulsively, touching his arm.

Magi jerked his arm away and stiffened. "Nothing. Run along and play," he replied acidly.

"Screw you!" Yoh snapped, and headed for the door. Had he seriously thought Mr. Starched and Pressed was hot? Just because Hinomiya was gone didn't mean he was that desperate.

0 0 0

 _Damn it._ Yoh had reacted just as he'd expected, as he'd wanted, leaving him alone on the bridge, but though he'd purposefully chased him off, Magi simultaneously and foolishly wished he hadn't left so quickly and easily, that he would have stayed and tried harder to find out what was wrong. But Yoh was just a kid, not someone he could burden with their problems. Yoh was lucky, in that regard. The Major had rescued Magi too, but though chronologically a teenager, he hadn't been a kid for years. He'd fought tooth and nail to survive. Because of it, he'd been made Hyoubu's lieutenant almost immediately, as soon as the Major trusted him enough. Not that he trusted anyone, at least, not completely, and not at first.

He scowled. Except for Hinomiya. The one person Hyoubu shouldn't have trusted at all, he'd trusted immediately and completely, though he denied it. Although it was far more complex. The Major had trusted Hinomiya _knowing_ he was untrustworthy, that he'd betray him, as if he'd wanted him to, needed him to, to prove all over again to himself and his crew that humans, psychic or normal, couldn't be trusted. Personally, Magi thought it was because the Major had started to trust and care too much, because of Kaoru Akashi and Koichi Minamoto's influence on him, and his own humanity had been growing far too strong to do what needed to be done, as leader of P.A.N.D.R.A.

Magi still couldn't believe how it had all worked out, in the end. Hinomiya had betrayed Hyoubu even worse than Magi had feared he would, he'd helped the U.S.E.I. attack and destroy their ship, capture Yugiri and nearly kill Hyoubu and the rest of them, but then Hinomiya himself had been betrayed and miraculously escaped certain death. And then Hinomiya saved the Major, twice, first from drowning, and then from his out of control power. He'd save Yugiri as well. And Hyoubu had forgiven him. They all had. Magi knew he had, as well, once he's seen Hinomiya would willingly die to protect them, that he was no longer a threat. Although he was potentially still a threat, of a sort: a threat to the Major's heart, if not his life. Magi didn't want to see the Major's recently healed heart break.

But right now he had more immediate concerns. P.A.N.D.R.A. was dangerously low on funds, on the liquid capital they needed to survive. Magi needed to ensure their operations weren't adversely impacted by it. He stared at the door Yoh had left from, cursing himself for being an idiot for feeling a twinge of longing as he did so, in the next moment. He was in danger of becoming a lovestruck fool, just like Hyoubu, if he wasn't careful, and he was fully and painfully aware that the only one Yoh had eyes for was Hinomiya, even if he didn't necessarily realize it yet. But the Major was completely obsessed with Kaoru Akashi, his Queen.

0 0 0

Minamoto watched over the girls in concern. They'd only just left Comerica, after the joint debriefing, and would still be on the plane for a number of hours, and this last mission had been particularly difficult and draining, physically, psychically and emotionally. The worst of it was, finally bringing the mass murderer of all those children to justice should have been a triumph, but in the end, the man had committed suicide, rather than be captured, and of course, his capture or death couldn't bring back the children he'd killed, or the hope that had been lost the day that spearhead school fell.

In the months following the school's destruction, all the other schools in the country with psychic children enrolled had expelled those children, for the safety of the rest of their students. In spite of the self sacrifice and bravery of those 27 psychic children, that single act of cruelty and terrorism had set back acceptance of psychic children by decades, at least in Comerica.

Schools elsewhere had been affected to a lesser extent. Thankfully, allies or not, Japan had refused to be swayed by Comerica's less tolerant education policies. Minamoto had still been able to convince the Ministry of Education to accept the girls as students, even though they were Level 7, the highest Level espers, opening the doorway for wider acceptance in Japan, and hopefully, eventually, peaceful coexistence with normals for all espers.

Without warning, Kaoru, who had nearly been asleep, sat bolt upright, a look of pure terror on her face.

Minamoto went to her immediately. "Kaoru! What's wr…"

"Kyousuke! Something's wrong with Kyousuke!" she cried, grabbing his arms, panic in her eyes.

 _Damn it._ He hated to see that look, but more, he hated it was for Hyoubu.

"Don't worry. I'll find out what's happening," he promised as he dialed Director Tsubomi, as Aoi and Shiho, now wide awake as well, comforted Kaoru.

"Director, this is Minamoto. Kaoru is sensing Hyoubu's in trouble. Have the precognetics made any predictions, or are there any reports about P.A.N.D.R.A.?" he asked.

"No predictions or reports, but I have the same feeling as Kaoru. I was about to call you. We're… just a moment. Yes, damn it, let them in, on my authority! Just monitor which files they access or what questions they ask the mainframe. Only shut them down if they attempt to attack us, if they try to either delete or corrupt our files," she ordered.

"Director? What's happening?" Minamoto asked, frustrated to be so far from headquarters and unable to help.

"It appears P.A.N.D.R.A. is trying to access our mainframe, from one of those backdoors we discovered and have been monitoring. I'm letting them in because… oh. No wonder he's so upset. Thank goodness. It's fine. Tell Kaoru that Hyoubu will be alright in a moment. It was a false alarm. News just broke on your case, but the name of the target hasn't been released yet, just the fact that he was ranked high on the C.R.I.M.E. list, and Kyousuke apparently thought it was Hinomiya who had been killed," she explained. "P.A.N.D.R.A. is searching for information on the U.S.E.I. assault, but also running a clandestine search on Hinomiya's name in our database."

Minamoto's eyes widened. He'd seen the U.S.E.I. spy Hinomiya had worked his way into P.A.N.D.R.A.'s ranks, and that Hyoubu seemed particularly close to the man, but still, for him to be so affected... although Hinomiya had saved Hyoubu's life twice after his betrayal and miraculously regained Hyoubu's trust. For Hinomiya to have actually been able to overcome Hyoubu's power and seal it away, the bond of trust between the two men had to be particularly strong.

"What is it? What's happened to Kyousuke?" Kaoru demanded, tears in her eyes, the despair in her voice heart wrenching.

Minamoto cursed himself silently for not reassuring her immediately. "It's alright. Hyoubu's going to be fine. Apparently news was just released about Malayev's death, but his name hasn't been revealed yet, and Hyoubu thought it was Andy Hinomiya who was killed. Director Tsubomi said he should be fine in a few moments: they made sure P.A.N.D.R.A. was able to access the information about our case, so they'll know it wasn't Hinomiya," he explained.

"Thank goodness!" Kaoru cried in relief, and then her expression softened. "You're right. I feel it. He's alright now."

Minamoto gritted his teeth. He hated that she and Hyoubu had a connection like that, some sort of psychic link, although in the past, it had saved them both, on different occasions. He knew he was both jealous and resentful of the bond they shared, that as a normal, he'd never have that same closeness to Kaoru, but it was worse that it was Hyoubu, the man trying to manipulate her destiny into something it should never be.

But then Kaoru hugged him, and even knowing it was Hyoubu she wished she was hugging, he hugged her back. "Why don't you three get some rest, now that you know everything is alright? It's a long flight, and you more than deserve it." He'd try to arrange a vacation for them as soon as they got back. They needed some time off, after all the excitement of the past months.

"Only if you rest as well. You're much older, so you're more tired than we are," Kaoru said, both concern and devilment in her gaze.

"Old men need more sleep than children," Aoi agreed mischievously.

"I'm not that much older than you. Only ten years. And it's not like you're children anymore, now that you're sixteen. You're all young women now," Minamoto argued, realizing only after he'd said the words that he'd fallen into their trap, as they pounced.

"You're right! Ten years is nothing!" Aoi agreed.

"We're old enough to be brides!" Shiho said happily.

"Which one of us will you marry? Me, right?" Kaoru flirted, flinging herself on him.

"Sit down! Let go!" Minamoto, ordered, struggling in the arms of the three octopi who had trapped him, feeling relief wash over him. Kaoru still wasn't completely under Hyoubu's spell, and young woman or not, she truly was still a child at heart.


	2. Chapter 2 - Betrayed!

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 2 – Betrayed!

"What do you mean it's been sold?" Hyoubu demanded, glaring at his property agent. They'd arrived in Sprain the night before, and were currently in Maldrid. Magi had arrived the week before, to take care of some of P.A.N.D.R.A.s many business ventures. Hyoubu had planned to make their next stop Sevrille, though he'd kept it a surprise, even from Magi. They all deserved a vacation, and the villa he owned there was particularly isolated, peaceful, beautiful and seldom used. It was the perfect getaway. Or at least, it had been.

"Just last week. The last of the contents of the villa were packed and moved out two days ago, by your men, as soon as the final papers were signed by your agent, Shiro Magi. He supervised the sale and move personally. We'd dealt with him before, of course, he's the one who signed the initial papers when you purchased the estate. He showed us current documents granting him power of attorney, to act in your stead again, so we'd be certain you still employed him. Are you telling me you didn't authorize the sale? That your man acted in bad faith, without your knowledge, or that he's not truly still employed by you?" the estate manager asked incredulously, looking appalled.

"No. No, of course not. I just didn't realize the villa would sell so quickly, that's all," Hyoubu lied, his thoughts racing. "I had thought to spend one final weekend there. But that's fine. What was the final figure?"

"$14.6 million. You more than tripled your original investment. As requested, we paid it in two separate bank checks, one for $12.6 million, and the other for $2 million. Between you and me, you sold at precisely the right time. This real estate bubble we're currently enjoying can't last forever. I understand you only had a $2 million dollar mortgage on the property, so …"

"What mortgage? What are you talking about?" Hyoubu snapped, his fury increasing. That property had never been mortgaged. He'd owned it free and clear since the day he'd purchased it, years ago.

The man paled and backed up a step. "I… perhaps you should discuss that with Mr. Magi?" he nervously suggested.

"Yes. It appears I have a great deal to discuss with him," Hyoubu agreed icily.

0 0 0

Magi almost smiled as he paid off the $2 million mortgage he'd taken out on the property the month before, immediately after the _Queen of Catastrophe_ sank. With the sale, they'd be saved the costly upkeep of the seldom used property, the mortgage was paid off in full, and a respectable amount of the money he'd borrowed from P.A.N.D.R.A.'s primary business account had been replenished. They now had the liquid capital necessary to finance P.A.N.D.R.A.'s many illicit activities for at least another two weeks, possibly even a full month, if he manipulated the funds skillfully enough. The Major wouldn't discover the $2 million; it wouldn't appear in the books he periodically showed him. He'd tell Hyoubu the property sold for $12.6 million, still a hefty return on his investment. Hopefully it would be a number of months before the Major even learned that he'd sold the property without consulting him.

He glanced at his watch. It was still early. He'd treat himself to lunch on shore, in celebration. Perhaps even dinner, as well. Maybe even spend the night in a hotel. His own personal bank balance would just be able to cover it. For the first time in a long time, he could afford to be a little extravagant. The strain of his creative bookkeeping the past few weeks had been taking its toll. Hyoubu and the ship could do without him for a single night.

0 0 0

"What do you mean, you want me to analyze our books? That's Magi's job," Yoh complained. Not that he couldn't do it. He was actually quite adept at accounting. He'd had no choice, with his thriving side business.

"Magi told Momiji that he wouldn't be returning to the ship tonight. He's apparently rented a hotel room," Hyoubu replied.

Yoh frowned, unaccountably annoyed. _Magi hooked up with someone? Was that why he isn't returning? No, that doesn't make sense. We'd welcome any psychic onboa… a normal? Don't tell me he hooked up with a normal? No, he couldn't have. It must just be some goody two shoes type, like that guy Sakaki from B.A.B.E.L., someone who wouldn't approve of P.A.N.D.R.A. Right?_ Why didn't that thought make him feel better?

"Can't it wait until tomorrow?" Yoh complained.

"No, it can't. I'm concerned there might be an issue with some of our accounts. So you're going to check and make sure there isn't one," Hyoubu said, with a smile like a crocodile.

It chilled Yoh's blood. There was threat behind that smile, and fury, and… _What has Magi done? The Old Man can't think that Magi intentionally… no. Magi wouldn't. He couldn't have! He'd never embezzle funds would he? From P.A.N.D.R.A.? From all of us? From Hyoubu?_

"Now, Yoh," Hyoubu ordered, the vicious smile vanished, a look of predatory fury in its place.

"Sure, boss!" Yoh said, trying to sound calm, as he headed for the computer.

"Not here on the bridge. In Magi's cabin," Hyoubu said, and in the next moment, he teleported them there.

Yoh couldn't help but look around curiously, even though he knew Magi would be furious with him for being in his private room uninvited. _And of course, Magi would never have a reason to invite me, would he?_

The cabin, though remarkably similar in size to his own, was furnished far differently. There was cool elegance in every piece of furniture, and the room was immaculately clean and unadorned, save for a few paintings. Unlike him, Magi had only a single computer with a single monitor. He booted up the machine. "Um. Do you know his password?" Yoh preferred not to reveal that he already knew it, that he knew everyone's, not when the Major was doubting even Magi, and was obviously already enraged. Yoh had programmed the ship's mainframe to update him on all of their passwords whenever they were changed.

Hyoubu touched the keyboard, obviously using his psychometry, and then frowning typed in: Only FOOLS Tru$t a Pretty Face. "He won't be so handsome, anymore, if I find he's made a fool of me," Hyoubu promised viciously.

 _Shit! The Major really does think that Magi betrayed him, stole from him. How much did he take? Has he spent it already? If I can figure out what he did, without the Major seeing, and replace it using my… Wait, what? Why would I…? If he stole from… but he must have had a good reason, right? Magi is the most honorable man I've ever met. He wouldn't have done something so immoral. Illegal, sure, he'd steal from other people, but not from us. Not from his friends. His family._ Now, all he needed to do was prove that to Hyoubu, by showing him the books.

Three hours later, Yoh was nearly shaking with relief. "That's everything." There was nothing wrong. Everything was fine. _Thank God._

"That's not everything. There has to be another file, or maybe even another computer," Hyoubu claimed.

"Why would you think that? What reason do you have?" Yoh asked, frustrated. He'd spent hours and not found a single penny out of place.

"I have two million of them, actually. Or rather, Magi does," Hyoubu said coldly.

Yoh's eyes widened in shock. _Two million? Is he saying Magi actually stole two million dollars from us?_

Hyoubu closed his eyes and Yoh knew he was extending his power into the room. Then he strode to the closet, pressed his hand to a spot on the wall, and a concealed door slid open. Hyoubu removed a laptop from inside.

 _Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Magi, damn it, what have you done?_ Not for the first time, Yoh wished he was a telepath, although of course, trying to warn Magi telepathically while standing so close to Hyoubu would only succeed in getting him killed as well. _He wouldn't, would he? Actually kill Magi?_

The thought made his heart flutter uncertainly in his chest. Magi was like a brother to Hyoubu. He _… Run, Magi! Hide! Can I warn you somehow, text you or e-mail a message to your phone? Hyoubu can teleport instantly to wherever you're staying. Shit. What if he's listening now, to what I'm thinking? He'll think I betrayed him too._ Yoh's thoughts raced as he booted up the machine, dreading what he'd find.

It took less than half an hour to seal Magi's fate. Yoh stared in shock at the evidence. Magi had juggled money from account to account for a number of months, probably even years, there was evidence of discrepancies here and there over time, but in the past weeks, the figures had become massive. He'd tried to cover the questionable transactions with the secret mortgage on Hyoubu's property, digging his grave deeper and deeper, until finally he'd sold the property without Hyoubu's knowledge or approval and embezzled two million dollars as part of the sale.

But how had be planned to hide the mortgage, that two million, the property sale itself and all the other thefts from them indefinitely? He should have realized he would eventually be caught, and there was nowhere in the world he could hide, not from Hyoubu, with his power. The Major's psychometry could find him anywhere, unless Magi spent the rest of his life under the most powerful ECMs in the world. Even then, Hyoubu could find him, once his full power was released again. It made no sense.

Hyoubu glared at Yoh, the fury and pain from the betrayal by his right hand, the man he had trusted for years, both terrifying and heartbreaking to see. "Don't tell the others. I might keep the truth from them. I haven't decided yet," Hyoubu said tersely, and then he was gone, teleported away.

0 0 0

Magi rose from the Jacuzzi, dried himself with the soft, thick towel and then wrapped himself in the luxurious, plush snow white bathrobe the hotel had provided, feeling completely decadent, slightly guilty and more than a little lonely, as he padded to the inviting bed. He'd spent a full hour in the bar downstairs, hoping to hook up with someone, but most of those who had been interested were women, and two of them annoyingly persistent. The few men hadn't been up to his standards, and none of them, of course, had been psychics. In a way, that had been a good thing, since any who were might well have been working for one government or another.

He'd found himself staring at one of the normals, who was completely oblivious to his presence, his nose buried in the screen of his laptop. His hair had been blond, not reddish brown, and his eyes blue not gold, but he'd still reminded him enough of Yoh that he'd left the bar, with the reluctant and depressing knowledge that he didn't want a random, meaningless hook up with some stranger.

Magi sighed as he lay down on the enormous bed. He might not be enjoying someone's company tonight, but at least he could finally get some sleep. The bed felt as wonderful as it looked, the soft sheets and downy pillow successfully draining the last of the tension from his body. He remained alert, of course, but not on guard the way he had been, and the burden of financial stress was finally lifted from his shoulders, at least for a short while.

His thoughts strayed to the young man in the bar again. Maybe he should have approached him, spoken to him, gauged his reaction, learned at least whether or not he was gay or bi. Whether he had a thing for grim, wealthy, responsible older men in suits. Formerly wealthy. _Tch._ He wasn't looking to be anyone's sugar daddy. He wanted… he wanted Yoh, only not the carefree slacker he was. He wanted a Yoh who, if not worried about the future, at least planned for it, thought about it, was aware of it. How could Yoh waste his life playing video games, or surfing the net, or on Tumblr, or whatever it was he was doing all those endless hours?

Although what did he expect? Yoh was, to all intents and purposes still little more than a child, after all: his every need was provided for, he was resentful of and rebellious against the men he relied upon for his survival, and he never thought past the latest toys and gadgets. He had so much raw talent and skill, he'd proven that with the hacking he'd done for them, and the few websites he'd designed, for their various schemes. He was one of the few among them who had talents other than his psychic powers that he could rely upon; he could live in the world of the normals, if he chose to.

 _Damn it._ He'd never get to sleep this way. All the tension was back, and the restlessness.

His eyes fell upon the unopened complimentary bottle of champagne still chilling in the bucket, and the pair of glasses. He'd planned to bring the unopened bottle back to the ship with him, since he didn't have anyone to drink it with, but maybe he'd imbibe after all. He popped the cork and poured himself a glass of the bubbly golden liquid. _Double damn._ The champagne was the same color as Yoh's eyes.

He raised the glass in a mock toast to himself. "To foolish old men."

"For me? How thoughtful of you," a sarcastic voice said from behind him, as the glass was torn from his hand by an invisible force.

Magi spun in shock, his eyes flaring in recognition of the voice and form. "Major! What are you doing here?"

"Surely you expected me? After all, you just toasted me, didn't you?" Hyoubu lifted the champagne flute to his lips with his power and drank deeply, draining it, and then wiped his lips with his hand, crinkling his nose in distaste. "I prefer sake. But then, my tastes were never as refined as yours, were they Magi? Although it doesn't matter now, does it? Long before I met you, I knew to never drink with anyone I didn't completely trust. And of course, I trust so few. Only fools trust a pretty face, isn't that right, Magi?" Hyoubu challenged, his formerly deceptively mild tone now deadly.

Magi's eyes widened at the change, and at the familiar phrase: his password, his sardonic, unheeded caution to Hyoubu against Hinomiya. "You accessed my computer," Magi said numbly, the enormity of all that implied suddenly sickeningly apparent.

"No. I accessed _my_ computer. P.A.N.D.R.A. belongs to me. Everything and everyone on the _Catastrophe_ belongs to me. P.A.N.D.R.A. _is_ me. But then, you already knew that when you stole from me, didn't you?"

" _Stole_ from you? I never… why would…?" Magi asked in confusion and hurt.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out about the unauthorized sale of my property? About the mortgage? About the two million dollars you stole? About the rest? I was merely giving you enough rope for you to hang yourself. And you… you…" Hyoubu swayed, his hand going to his head. "What…?" He staggered, staring at his hand as if he'd never seen it before, confusion, anger and fear warring with one another in his eyes, as he grabbed for the bedpost to steady himself and somehow missed it.

"Major!" Magi cried in alarm, his wet hair immediately lashing out and wrapping around Hyoubu, steadying him. _Is it his heart again? Or a psychic attack of some kind?_ He'd no sooner thought so than the huge window overlooking the city shattered, at the same moment there was an explosion at the door, and over a dozen men in combat gear poured into the room from both breaches.

"Shit! The drug's not working! He's still on his feet! Fire! Shoot to kill!" one of their attackers ordered, even as hundreds of shards of glass rose back up from the floor and flew at the heavily armed men.

Magi's hair shielded them both as dozens of rounds were fired, and then it lashed out and wrapped around half a dozen guns, yanking them from their wielders' hands, but his attack was hampered by Hyoubu, who sagged limply in the tangle of his hair, the simple preemptive attack with the glass fragments apparently having completely drained him of his failing strength.

 _Damn it!_ From what the attacker had said, the champagne was apparently drugged. They'd targeted him, but gotten Hyoubu instead. _The Major never should have been here!_

"Shit! I told you we should have risked the camera and bugs! That's Hyoubu! He couldn't have gotten past our surveillance. He must have teleported in here. Where the hell is that ECM?" one of their attackers yelled.

And suddenly a helicopter was in front of the window, the curtains flapping wildly in the wind from the rotors, a hideous screeching whir coming from the large ECM protruding from the belly of the chopper.

Magi desperately strategized the only possible route of escape: the last thing they would expect would be for him to head toward the ECM, as his power dwindled to nothing, and his hair fell limply onto his back. Fortunately, his body, at least, was still powerful.

He caught Hyoubu as he collapsed, slung him over his shoulder and ran for the shattered window, almost falling as gunfire raked down his shoulder, back, buttocks and legs, multiple rounds penetrating into his flesh, but for some reason, they felt as if they only entered one or two centimeters or so, instead of tearing through him as they should have, as if he were wearing invisible body armor which slowed them, reducing their impact, their destructive force.

It was at that moment that Magi realized Hyoubu was still conscious, still fighting to protect not only himself, but both of them, whether because he knew he couldn't escape without him or because he realized he hadn't betrayed him immaterial at the moment. _What if Hyoubu has been hit, too?_

With a final sprint Magi leapt from the window and out into the air, 36 stories above the ground, immediately arrowing himself downwards to increase the speed of his fall, to put as much distance between the ECM and them as possible, clinging tightly to Hyoubu.

Magi's vision blurred and sparks flashed behind his eyes, as the world threatened to disappear in a red haze, either from the speed of their descent or blood loss from the gunshot wounds, even as he heard the whining shriek of straining rotors as the helicopter dove after them.

They were only a few dozen meters from the ground when he felt his hair finally stir, and he focused on growing wings, on gliding to safety. But he realized in horror they were moving too fast, that it was too late: they were too close to the ground. In a final act of desperation he curled protectively around Hyoubu and twisted midair, to take the impact of the fall on his back, cushioned by his prehensile hair. Even so, he expected to hear and feel bones snap, his spine and ribs shatter, but instead, there was that same invisible cushion against the impact, and pain instead of agony. Hyoubu had saved him again.

"Major!" Magi's eyes ran over him desperately, seeking injury, praying there would be none. Hyoubu's blue eyes were only half open and unfocused.

"Kill you myself," Hyoubu mumbled, and then he fell fully limp, unconscious.

Magi struggled to sit, but a wave of dizziness washed over him. He fought to stay conscious, and cursed as a shadow towered over him. He couldn't let them catch the Major! But he was powerless to prevent it.

"You can't pass out yet. You have to help me get the two of you to the van, before they catch all of us," a sympathetic voice unexpectedly scolded.

Magi fought to focus on the face, but it was beyond his ability at the moment. Whoever it was, though, regardless of whether he was truly offering aid, was attempting to take Hyoubu from him. Magi lashed out with his hair, attempting to push him away, appalled at how weak the attack was.

"Hey, stop that! I'm on your side! Well today, anyway. Besides, Kaoru would never forgive me if I let Hyoubu get captured by someone other than us," the voice chastised. "Just three more meters, Magi. Come on. The Major is counting on you to save him."

"Major," he mumbled as he forced himself to his knees and then his feet, with the aid of his hair, using it like spider legs, refusing to let go of Hyoubu, as he headed for the shadowy shape of a cargo van, the open door. The two of them fell inside, and he heard the door slide closed, then the driver's door open and shut. "Hang on. We still have to evade that chopper. This is going to be a wild ride!" the voice cried almost gleefully.

Magi forced his eyes to focus with the last of his strength and cursed. _Sakaki._ It was that damned doctor, from B.A.B.E.L. He'd willingly just entered the lion's den. Worse, he didn't have the strength to fight, or even to sit, it was running out of his body in rivulets, his blood pooling under him, from the multiple gunshot wounds.

"Magi, stay conscious! I can't do anything about your injuries yet, I need to get us out of here first. Come on, you can control the carbon in your body, right? Can't you stop the bleeding, or at least slow it? I mean, it was your power that kept the bullets from going in too deep right?" Sakaki urged.

 _Right. He can diagnose with a touch, using his psychometry. But he's wrong. It was Hyoubu. I couldn't block them because of the ECM, but his power was strong enough. Even drugged, with most of his power sealed away, he was strong enough. He saved me. Again._

"What the hell happened to Hyoubu? All I had time to pick up when I touched you both was that he's still alive, uninjured, but heavily sedated. Whereas you, you're a mess, but all the bullet impacts are unnaturally shallow," Sakaki noted, confirming his thoughts, as the van accelerated and then turned to the left so abruptly that Magi slammed into the wall of the van, as an explosion sounded outside from their right.

"Shit! Stop firing at us, idiots! Don't you want to capture them live? And don't you realize there are civilians around?" Sakaki yelled, as the van careened in the opposite direction. "Hah! And Minamoto thought I'd never get to use what I learned in that evasive driving course!" he said almost triumphantly, as Magi slid to the right, during the next wild turn. "I'd like to see Shiho beat me now at that racing game!

"Hang on! There's a parking garage, I'm going to take us underground, then U-turn and pull us back out the entrance. Fortunately, this isn't one of the ones with the steel spikes for going the wrong way," he confided.

This time, forewarned, Magi used his hair to brace both himself and Hyoubu, as the van spun around crazily in a hairpin turn and flew back up the ramp. They rocketed back out onto the street. "A few more of those, and we should be home free," Sakaki claimed.

Magi only managed to stay conscious for the next two.

0 0 0

"This is taking too long," Sakaki muttered, as he glanced into the back of the van anxiously, almost as disturbed by the sight of Hyoubu and Magi both rolling limply, now, as by the red smear of blood left on the white metal floor everywhere Magi's back touched, the man's formerly white robe drenched red with his blood.

He couldn't believe he was driving a stolen van, transporting two unconscious and helpless internationally wanted psychic fugitives, when less than an hour ago he'd been enjoying his vacation in a dance club, well on his way to getting company for the night. He'd had no idea P.A.N.D.R.A. was anywhere nearby, until he'd gotten the emergency call from Director Tsubomi interrupting his leave with news of their precognitive network's latest prediction, that in less than an hour, half way across Maldrid, Hyoubu and Magi of P.A.N.D.R.A. were going to be either captured or killed by an as yet unknown enemy at the five star luxury Matador Hotel.

The uncertainty factor of the prediction kept fluctuating, as did the prediction details themselves, but the numbers were disturbingly high. Due to both the high powered ECM device that was about to be used and the Level 7 ESPer involved there were conflicting images: one of Magi being shot in his hotel room, one of Magi falling to his imminent death from his window with Hyoubu in his arms, several of Magi and Hyoubu fighting armed men on the roof, and even one of a helicopter and then the top of the building exploding in a flash of red light. Two had unfortunately proven true: Magi had been shot, and he and Hyoubu had been falling.

That was the tricky thing with Level 7 psychics: their very power impacted the probability matrices all to hell. Which is why the prediction of the Queen's betrayal and attack on mankind was particularly disturbing. Those images didn't deviate, no matter who saw them. To date, two different dolphins and their own precognitive network had seen the same exact image: Kaoru betrayed the world as one of the leaders in an ESPer war against normals, and Minamoto shot and killed her, when she refused to surrender.

But like Minamoto, Sakaki refused to believe that future. Minamoto would never allow it to happen. He'd raised those kids like his own daughters, loved them as much as any father, cared for them, sacrificed for them, risked his life time and again to protect them, been injured and kidnapped and tortured over and over again because of them. As long as Minamoto still lived, there was a chance to save Kaoru, to change fate.

Besides, all three girls were Level 7. Between Kaoru's power, Aoi's and Shiho, surely the future could be changed? Maybe now that Hyoubu was going to owe his life to B.A.B.E.L., he might also help them alter Kaoru's tragic destiny. He knew Hyoubu didn't want Kaoru to die.

At the moment, though, he and Magi and Hyoubu were in far greater danger of imminent death, and unfortunately, he was currently a one man show. Neither man could currently aid in their escape. And if he didn't stop and treat Magi soon, shallow wounds or not, he was going to bleed to death. The rest of B.A.B.E.L. was still hours away. It was his job to keep himself and the two men alive and free until his back-up arrived.


	3. Chapter 3 - Into the Fire

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 3 – Into the Fire

Minamoto had seldom felt so well rested and conversely so exhausted in his life. They'd just returned from their weeklong vacation, and the girls had been eager to squeeze as much fun into every waking moment of every day as was possible. As a result, the three of them had spent the last 72 hours not only wide awake, but hiking, swimming, and biking until they were scarcely able to move. If they hadn't had a driver, they never would have made it back to the city. Fortunately, the man had helped him carry the girls up to the apartment. The three of them had fallen sound asleep in the car, and proved impossible to wake. He'd have thought they would sleep for at least a full day, but not five minutes ago, Kaoru had woken up screaming about Hyoubu.

Minamoto tried to convince her it was only a nightmare, or a false alarm, like the last time, but she insisted Hyoubu was in danger, worse, she swore he was dying. Minamoto had called B.A.B.E.L. to reassure her and was shocked to be connected directly to the Director, who informed him that the precognitive network had made a number of alarming predictions about both Hyoubu and his right-hand man Magi, the details of which were horrifying. As was the news that Sakaki, of all people, had been sent to save them.

Minamoto felt his stomach fall and his heart flutter at that bombshell. "Sakaki? You sent Sakaki to save them? Alone? He's a doctor, not a field agent! He has no offensive powers. What were you thinking?"

"He has the staff we attuned to his power," Tsubomi countered.

"That's a close combat weapon, and from what you told me they have guns! And ECM! And he'll be facing an army! He'll be as helpless as Hyoubu and Magi! Worse! How could you risk him like that?" Minamoto fumed, both furious and terrified for his best friend.

"He was the only one nearby. He knows the risks. He accepted the assignment," the Director argued, her tone both soothing and defensive.

"Of course he did! He's an idiot, overconfident and proud, he's always wanted to be a field agent, and you knew that, you used his weaknesses against him, exploited them, so he'd take on this insane mission," Minamoto yelled _. Sakaki is going to die and there's nothing I can do to save him. By the time anyone else gets there, it will all be over. Aoi is in no condition to teleport._ The knowledge was terrifying, debilitating.

He hung up on the Director and tried Sakaki's cell phone, but it rang and then went to voicemail. _Damn it!_

"Minamoto! I heard most of that. Where are Hyoubu and Sakaki? Tell me so I can save them!" Kaoru begged.

He shook his head. "We're too far away, and Aoi wiped herself out, you all did. Right now she can't safely teleport that far, to a place she's never been. The only two other people on the planet who can are Hyoubu himself and… Yuguri!" Minamoto scanned his contacts for the P.A.N.D.R.A. numbers he'd secretly input into his phone and pressed speed dial for Flyswatter. Momiji Kano would be the best choice, after Magi. If he couldn't get her to listen, he'd try Loudmouth, Yoh Fujiura.

He cursed as his call to Momiji went directly to voicemail. He hit the button for Loudmouth, and prayed.

"Minamoto. You have five seconds to convince me not to hang up," a young, arrogant voice stated. He had a right to be arrogant. Minamoto's number was blocked. There shouldn't have been any way for Yoh to know it was him calling.

"Hyoubu and Magi are under attack at the Matador Hotel in Maldrid, and we're too far away to save them," Minamoto replied, speaking so quickly it almost sounded like a single long word.

"What? By who? Why warn us?" Yoh demanded, the alarm in the first word turning to suspicion in the rest.

"You know we don't want Hyoubu to die. We don't know who's attacking them, but they have guns and ECM. Our precognitive matrix discovered the attack was imminent, and our only personnel in the immediate area was Dr. Sakaki: he's on vacation, he's an ESPer, but a non-combatant. He's going to die too. The girls and I can't get there in time: our teleporter is currently out of commission. If you want to save them, Yugiri's going to have to teleport your strike team to them. Please, save Sakaki too. He risked his life for theirs, and he's an ESPer too. I know we're usually your enemies, but you can't let him die," Minamoto begged.

"Oh God! It's too late. It's on their local news," Minamoto gasped, his stomach churning as he watched the live news feed he'd pulled up on his satellite dish, the moment he learned where the attack was supposed to take place. He watched a shaky cell phone video taken by an eyewitness of the attack, of Magi and Hyoubu falling, not flying, but falling. He described what he saw, dazed. "I don't see Sakaki but…" The call disconnected.

"Kaoru, don't listen to Minamoto! I can do it!" Aoi cried desperately, standing in her pajamas beside a wide-eyed Shiho, their former debilitating exhaustion momentarily overridden by adrenaline and determination.

"Aoi!" Kaoru cried desperately.

Aoi grabbed Kaoru, and they vanished, as Minamoto reached out a moment too late, helpless to stop them.

Shiho paled, shaking her head in denial, her eyes wide with the same horror he was drowning in.

 _Oh God._ _Aoi was too worn out. They'll vanish and never return, or teleport into a building, not displacing it as usual, but fusing with it, dying._ Even if they somehow made it there safely, Kaoru lost control when under extreme stress, exhausted, or when someone she loved was in danger, and this time, it was all three. If they somehow miraculously made the jump and Kaoru lost control, at best, they were going to spark an international incident and sway public opinion further against psychics. At worst, she could die and take half the city out with her.

 _Think! You're so damned intelligent, think!_ But there was nothing, no way out this time. Minamoto stared at Shiho, stunned. He'd never felt so helpless.

0 0 0

"Aoi!" Kaoru yelled in panic, as her friend crumpled and fell towards the roof. They had materialized above the building next door to the hotel. The hotel was a chaotic buzz of activity, with armed men swarming over the roof and coming into and exiting from a bank of broken windows surrounding one of the rooms near the top floor.

For a horrifying moment Kaoru thought Aoi was dead, that the strain of the teleport had killed her, but then she saw she was breathing, and realized she thankfully was only unconscious. But that didn't mean she was safe. Kaoru could only hope her friend's brain wasn't hemorrhaging: they'd been warned more than once by both Minamoto and Dr. Sakaki of the dangers of overextending their powers.

She'd never liked Sakaki, but Minamoto did, they were best friends, and surprisingly, Shiho liked him too, ever since she and Shiho went with him on that fishing trip, when Minamoto and Aoi had been off alone on that mission to protect the historical sites from vandalism. Somehow, while she was unconscious from her seasickness, the two of them had bonded. She'd protect Sakaki for Minamoto's sake, and for Shiho. First, she needed to get to the top of the hotel and find out what had happened.

She used her power to fly, coming down in the middle of the armed men. She ripped their guns from their hands using her power, before they could aim them at her.

"Where's Kyousuke, Magi and Dr. Sakaki?" she demanded.

"It's one of The Children! Don't let her escape! Kill her!" someone frantically ordered, and the men around her began attacking her bare handed, with knives, while others drew pistols. She blasted them all down with her power.

Then a helicopter dove towards her, and she covered her ears as the distinctive screeching scream of a high-powered ECM device sought to overwhelm her. Normally, the emitter would be no match for her Level 7 powers, but she was too exhausted to fully resist. She set off blast after blast, but the men just kept coming.

Strong hands grabbed her by the arm and flipped her. She crashed into the roof and lay stunned and then a knee dug into her back, a hand tangled in her hair, and for a split second she felt a razor sharp knife at her throat, and realized, horrified, that she was about to die.

Then suddenly the knife and weight were gone, and men were being flattened, and knocked off the rooftop. She sat up, dazed, and saw that there were three new people on the roof, a beautiful blue-haired woman, a cute young man and a little girl.

"Momiji!" she cried in surprise, realizing she had the stunning P.A.N.D.R.A. woman to thank for her rescue. "Yoh. Yuguri," she added. The young man opened his mouth and there was a horrible, high-pitched shriek as he unleashed his sonic power, and in the next moment, the ECM device and the helicopter carrying it exploded, even as Hyoubu and Magi appeared on the roof and began attacking the soldiers who were still standing.

"Kyousuke!" Kaoru cried out in relief, as Momiji aided them in battling the soldiers.

But then Yoh ran up to her. "It's not really them. Yugiri is using her illusion power to make them think it's them. How did you get here? Minamoto told us you were too far away," he accused suspiciously.

She opened her mouth to explain, but to her consternation, instead fell to her knees.

"Shit! Something's wrong with the Queen! We need to get her out of here!" Yoh demanded anxiously, his suspicions momentarily diverted.

"I'll blow the rooftop. Yuguri, and you need to teleport us just as it blows, so they'll think we're dead, that Hyoubu and Magi are too," Momiji instructed.

"OK," the tiny girl said solemnly.

"No, wait, the people," Kaoru argued, reaching out a hand helplessly, realizing they'd all be killed. But something was wrong, her vision was fading, her body oddly numb and distant. In the next moment there was a tremendous blast, just as they vanished, and Kaoru's consciousness faded with it.

0 0 0

Minamoto stared at the TV in stunned denial, as the image of the rooftop exploding played. He watched, horrified, as Kaoru, Hyoubu, Magi, Momiji, Yoh and Yugiri vanished in a bright flash that turned into a fireball of smoke and flame.

"Kaoru! No, she can't be!" Shiho sobbed in denial, the normally all but emotionless girl collapsing in grief.

 _She just watched her friend die. Go to her. Comfort her. Hug her,_ Minamoto told himself, but he was incapable of even the simplest action. He couldn't even tear his eyes away from the TV, let alone move his arms. _She's dead. Kaoru is dead. She… how can she be dead? She's only 16! Did I manage to change the future, alter her fate, her destiny, only to have her die years earlier?_

"Aoi. Where's Aoi?" he asked aloud, forcing himself to think past the crippling shock and pain and grief. Even if Kaoru was truly… dead… there was still a chance Aoi could be saved.

0 0 0

Sakaki sat panting in the driver's seat. He couldn't believe the helicopter was gone, that he'd somehow actually managed to shake it. He would have patted himself on the back, but he was too worried about his patients. He drove into the nearest parking garage and parked.

He scrambled out of the seat, into the back of the van and checked Magi's neck for a pulse. Still alive. But he wouldn't be for long, at the rate he was bleeding. He only hoped his somewhat still secret, limited telekinetic power would be sufficient to save him, combined with his medical skills, that the tissue damage wasn't too extensive. He couldn't risk taking Magi to a hospital, not without knowing who those men who attacked them were. For all they knew, they could be Sprain's own anti-ESPer units.

He opened his suitcase sized, well stocked B.A.B.E.L. trauma kit, congratulating himself both for bringing it with him on vacation and for having the foresight to return to his nearby hotel for it, after receiving the activation call. Ever since the time he'd been caught in that earthquake without even the most basic supplies, he'd never gone anywhere without a full emergency medical kit. Those few extra minutes spent to retrieve it wouldn't have been sufficient to locate Hyoubu and Magi and convince them of their danger, avoiding the attack and injury. Instead, he likely would have been caught in the middle of the attack.

After inserting an IV needle into Magi's left arm, he used a both his psychometry and diagnostic skills to determine which bullet wounds were the most damaging. Then using a combination of his telekinesis and surgical skill, he began removing the bullets one at a time, far more efficiently than a normal doctor could have, cleaning and stitching each wound as he worked, attaching a second plasma bag before he was done, thankful he'd had two pints. Without them, Magi's blood pressure would have been low enough for his entire circulatory system to collapse.

It was shocking how comforting the familiar act of surgery was, after the unaccustomed, harrowing helicopter chase, even is such a non-antiseptic environment. He used to envy Minamoto the excitement of being a field agent, though he'd worried about the danger to his friend. Now, after experiencing it firsthand, he knew he would be more anxious than ever any time Minamoto was on a mission with the girls.

He was just removing the final bullet when the door to the van was unexpectedly torn open, and he was yanked out and pinned to a cement wall of the garage by an invisible hand before he even saw a face. At sight of the striking blue haired beauty, he went weak with relief, in spite of the psychic energy hand wrapped around his neck. It was Momiji. P.A.N.D.R.A. had come to rescue their prodigal leaders and bring them home.

"What was this smarmy little shit doing to Magi?" Momiji demanded.

"Tending… bullet… wounds," Sakaki gasped out, in his own defense, fighting to stay conscious.

"Damn it! Magi and the Old Man are both unconscious. The Major looks alright, his heartbeat is strong and he's breathing fine, but Magi… he's been shot," the young man stated, his voice quavering. "There's blood everywhere. But… but it looks like the B.A.B.E.L. doctor is telling the truth, that he has been tending his injuries," the young male hothead in the van replied. A moment later he poked his head out. Yoh, as Sakaki had expected it would be.

He winced as he saw the little girl, Yugiri looking at the two unconscious men wide-eyed, her face streaked with tears.

Sakaki would have yelled at them for bringing her, if he could breathe enough to speak, but a moment later was grateful he hadn't been able to, when he realized it was undoubtedly Yugiri who had teleported them here, and most likely, led them to their missing men as well.

"Need… finish," Sakaki gasped out.

Yoh was glaring at him. "Let him go. Magi needs him," he demanded, apparently angered not at him, but at whomever had attacked their leaders.

"If you harm either of them, or any of us, you'll wish I'd strangled you," Momiji threatened, as she set him down, none too gently, beside the van.

"B.A.B.E.L. didn't attack them. They sent me to help," Sakaki said, as he headed back to his patient. He changed his gloves and began working on the final bullet wound.

"Hyoubu was drugged with something, but other than that appears fine, including his heart. I checked carefully to be certain, using my ability to diagnose him. Magi was hit with eight rounds. Something stopped the bullets from penetrating too deeply, but two different veins were damaged. I repaired those first, but I didn't have time to bind his wounds while we were being chased, so he had unfortunately already lost a lot of blood. I've given him two units of plasma to help compensate for that," Sakaki reported defensively.

He dug the final bullet out without resorting to using his psychokinetic power, not wanting to tip his hand to the enemy when even B.A.B.E.L. hadn't known about his concealed second power, until the night he'd been shot in the heart by one of their own, the Puppetmaster, and betrayed his ability to Minamoto, Naomi and Doubleface. He might work for B.A.B.E.L., but he didn't trust them entirely. He knew better. Trust got you killed. The only person on the planet he trusted was Minamoto, and even _he_ hadn't known about his second power until that night.

"As soon as he's done, drive down to the docks," Yoh ordered Momiji, to Sakaki's surprise. He would have thought she would be next in rank.

"All finished. So it looks like here is where we part company. You can keep the van, but to warn you, I didn't exactly claim ownership of it legally, so steer clear of police or ditch it as soon as you can," Sakaki suggested, peeling off the bloody glove and wiping the sweat from his face. The last time he'd had to do emergency field surgery had been on a boat, but he'd had Shiho there to assist him. He was thankful she wasn't here this time, though. Not with P.A.N.D.R.A. involved.

"Sorry, Doctor. They might still need you. And you have another patient," Yoh replied.

Sakaki looked from one to the other. "You all look fine to me, and there's nothing more I can do for Magi or Hyoubu," Sakaki said warily. He was tempted to remind them he worked for B.A.B.E.L., not P.A.N.D.R.A., but didn't think that was advisable, given the circumstances.

Then Yoh pointed towards an open van door a few cars away, to a blond haired man he'd never seen before, but he almost didn't remember to memorize the man's face, when he saw who he was holding. "Kaoru! What happened? How was she hurt? What's she doing here? Where are the others?" Sakaki demanded, fearing not only for her, but for her team, including Minamoto, as he rushed to her side. They never would have left Kaoru in P.A.N.D.R.A.'s clutches.

"We don't know. She was on the roof alone, was fighting against the ones who attacked the Old Man and Magi, but then blacked out when we teleported, though she looked unsteady before then," Yoh admitted.

Sakaki's frown of concern eased when he felt her strong heartbeat and saw her eyes looked clear and dilated normally, especially when he saw the signs of exhaustion in her face. He had no idea why she should be suffering from apparent sleep deprivation. She should have only just returned from a weeklong vacation with Minamoto and the others. Had their vacation been interrupted by a mission he hadn't heard about?

"I'm staying with her. But we need to get her, all of them, somewhere safe, somewhere they can rest and recover," Sakaki stated protectively.

"We're going back to the ship. We're docked not far from here. Yugiri, can you manage it, or should we drive?" Yoh asked, his brow creased in worry for the little girl.

She bit her lip and looked uncertain, which was enough of an answer for Sakaki. "Let's risk your van. She can teleport us if it's an emergency, on the way. Once we're closer it will be less of a strain," Sakaki suggested. He was relieved that they listened.

Thankfully, amazingly, they managed to reach the dock without incident. Sakaki frowned at the huge freighter berthed there, until he realized it must be the new _Queen of Catastrophe_ , but psychically shielded to appear to be a different ship altogether. Unfortunately, P.A.N.D.R.A. hadn't allowed him to call B.A.B.E.L., to update them on his mission status or inform them of the whereabouts and condition of Kaoru. But even if they were jamming the homing beacon in Kaoru's limiter, which he assumed they would be, Shiho should be able to use her psychometry skill on one of Kaoru's possessions to determine both her location and condition. Help should come soon, to rescue both him and Kaoru from P.A.N.D.R.A.

0 0 0

"Aoi!" Minamoto paled when he saw her sprawled limply on the rooftop, still breathless from running up the final stairs. After taking a jet to Sprain, they'd had to land the chopper they'd taken from the airport on the outskirts of Maldrid. Even hours after the incident, all air traffic was being diverted, even police helicopters and news helicopters, as military helicopters blanketed the sky. Heart hammering, he ran to her.

 _Please don't be dead. Don't be dead. God, please,_ Minamoto begged and prayed silently. He more fell than knelt, trembling fingers reaching, searching for a pulse in her throat, breath held. He exhaled shakily in relief when he felt the reassuring rhythm. _Thank God!_ "She's alive!" he reassured Shiho, who was pale and shaking.

Thank God for Aoi's homing beacon in her limiter. It had thankfully lead them straight to her. He'd refused to allow Shiho to touch anything that belonged to her friend, afraid of what Shiho would feel. The rest of the B.A.B.E.L. rescue mission swarmed around them, and he let the medics do their job, as he rose and hugged Shiho, who began sobbing in relief, or in grief for Kaoru. Minamoto was helpless to comfort her beyond the simple hug, numb from his own grief.

It still didn't feel real. How could Kaoru have died here? How could he have failed to protect her? He never should have let them tire themselves out so badly on their vacation. He was the adult. He should have forced them to sleep. They'd all needed a break so badly, but now Kaoru was dead, Aoi was injured, and poor Shiho was devastated, and it was all his fault.

 _Is Sakaki dead too? Was he in the top of the hotel, when it exploded? Did I kill my best friend as well as the girl I lo-?_ Minamoto wasn't even aware of his knees giving out until he hit the roof, dragging Shiho down with him.

"Minamoto!" Shiho cried in alarm. But her voice wasn't the one he wanted to hear, the one he'd never hear again.

"Help! Someone help!" Shiho cried, sounding like a frightened little girl, instead of the strong young women she tried to be. But she _was_ a little girl, they all were.

 _Sixteen. Kaoru was only sixteen. How can she be dead?_


	4. Chapter 4 - Unexpected Benefactors

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 4 – Unexpected Benefactors

They all loaded into the back of the van P.A.N.D.R.A. stole from the parking garage. It was apparently someone's home: there was a bed and dresser in the back. Magi and Hyoubu were lying on the former, the rest of them squished around the edges of the latter. There were no windows, other than the narrow, curtained panel to the front seats. The blond, Muscle, was driving. Sakaki hadn't recognized his face, but when they'd called him by his code name, he realized this was the man whose crush on Minamoto had led to his capture. He'd later escaped, of course, thanks to Hyoubu.

"You need to tell us what you saw, Doctor. When you came across them, were the Major and Magi fighting one another?" Momiji demanded to Sakaki's shock.

 _What's going on? Trouble in ESPer paradise? If Hyoubu and Magi have had a falling out, B.A.B.E.L. will want to know. Maybe we can recruit Magi to our side._

"No. They were both falling from the sky. Magi was carrying Hyoubu, but he was falling, not flying, because the ECM was too close, until the last few moments. Then I could see Magi use his hair to try to angle and slow their fall, but there wasn't enough time. The ground was too close. He turned, so that he'd be the one to hit the ground first, to take the brunt of the fall on his back, though from that height, at that velocity, they both would have died anyway. But then, at the last moment, something slowed them enough to survive the impact. Magi was using his prehensile hair, but that wouldn't have been enough. Hyoubu must have still been barely conscious, and used his powers," Sakaki answered honestly.

"Who drugged Hyoubu? If it was you…" Momiji left the threat unfinished, which made it all the more frightening, as Sakaki pictured the ways various P.A.N.D.R.A. individuals might take their revenge.

"It wasn't. He was already unconscious by the time I got to him, and Magi nearly so. I have to admit, I was shocked when I diagnosed Hyoubu. I wouldn't have thought anyone could get close enough to…" Sakaki paled as he belatedly realized the implication. _Magi drugged Hyoubu? He betrayed and attacked him? No. Then why fight so hard to save him?_

"Alright Yugiri. You've had plenty of opportunities to read his mind. What really happened? What is he hiding?" Momiji demanded.

 _She can read minds, as well as teleport? Thank God I was telling the truth. Shit. Although that means she'll know…_ He tried to block his secret ability from his thoughts.

When the little girl's eyes widened in surprise, he knew he'd been unsuccessful, though he wasn't truly surprised. From what he'd seen of her abilities so far, her power level far surpassed his own. She might even be a Level 7, like The Children and Hyoubu. Although Hyoubu, Hinomiya and Kaoru were in a class of their own, from what he'd seen. Except actually, the little girl's mental manipulation of perception of reality was certainly on that scale, plus she had multiple abilities, which was extremely rare, as were two of her skills, teleportation and mind reading. Her manipulation of perception was definitely on the same level of awe inspiring power as Hyoubu's hypnosis.

Yugiri blushed, and he belatedly realized she'd heard every thought.

"Yugiri?" Momiji prompted, her eyes narrowing and voice threatening, as she glared at Sakaki.

 _Oh terrific. Now she thinks I'm a lolicon, like Hyoubu,_ Sakaki thought with chagrin.

"He's not!" Yugiri exclaimed protectively, glaring at Sakaki.

Sakaki held up his hands. "Hey, I was only joking. We don't really think Hyoubu's a pedophile. He's wanted Kaoru for years, but he's always been clear that he's waiting for her to grow up. And we realize he's been acting like a surrogate father to you and the other P.A.N.D.R.A. children. We actually like Hyoubu, in spite of everything he's done. We want to help him and protect him, all of you. B.A.B.E.L. wouldn't have sent me to help him and Magi, if we thought they were irredeemable."

"You're telling the truth," Yugiri confirmed. Then she turned to Momiji. "He told the truth, about everything he said."

Sakaki waited for her to say the rest, to reveal his secret telekinetic ability, but she didn't. Instead, she gave him the tiniest of smiles, as if to confirm his secret was safe. "But you should have told your friend. You're lucky when he found out you were keeping a secret that he wasn't hurt, that you didn't fight, like the Major and Magi," Yugiri advised, looking sadly at the pair.

"What secret?" Momiji asked suspiciously.

"Secrets are secret for a reason. The Doctor won't harm us. And no, I won't be able to see Magi's secrets when he's unconscious. I need him to be thinking about them, when you question him," she added, and Momiji scowled, either at the restriction or because she'd just read her mind as well. "But Magi is good. He'd never betray the Major. They need to talk," Yugiri advised wisely.

0 0 0

Magi frowned as he awoke, confused. _Why am I wearing clothes, if I was sleeping?_ He always slept nude. _And why do I feel so strange?_ He put his hand to his head and his eyes widened as he saw the tube leading away from his wrist, and a figure beyond the bed. He bolted upright, his hair whipping around him, lashing out and wrapping around his captor, as he yanked out the needle, steadying himself with other strands of his hair, as he swayed dizzily, fighting to stay upright in the bed. _Who has me?_ _What have they done to me?_

"Calm down! It's alright, you're safe! You're on the _Queen of Catastrophe_ , in her sickbay," a vaguely familiar, muffled voice said from within the prison of his hair. It was hard to tell who, with his thoughts muzzy, and the voice distorted by the confining tendrils of his hair.

He looked around suspiciously, and belatedly recognized the sickbay aboard their new ship. They had yet to use it, until now, but he was the one to see to its design and to ensure that it was fully stocked. It was correct down to the last detail, impossible to mimic. _Not a trick._

He didn't release his prisoner, but he revealed his face. _Dr. Sakaki. Right. He was…_ "The Major! Where's Hyoubu?" he demanded, not seeing him in the room.

"Calm down. He's in his cabin. Momiji's with him, and Yuguri. We thought it best to separate you two, until we found out what happened. Yoh just stepped down to the galley, to get me some dinner. He didn't want to risk me leaving the room if you needed me. He hasn't left your side, except for just now. While he's gone, I want to offer you sanctuary with B.A.B.E.L. If you're in danger from Hyoubu…"

Magi shook his head. "It's a misunderstanding. I'll explain what happened and he'll understand. He knows I'd never…" He frowned. The Major had trusted in others once, long ago, and had the bullet scars in his forehead and chest to show for it, to remind him to never trust anyone so completely ever again. _Yet he trusts Hinomiya, even after he betrayed him, betrayed all of us. After years of faithful support, I'm the one he doubts, that he might not forgive._ The knowledge brought more pain and frustration than anger.

"You're awake!" a relieved voice said from the door. It was Yoh, carrying a tray, apparently the Doctor's dinner. "What did you do?" Yoh accused the Doctor with a suspicious scowl. The Doctor was still bound by his hair.

Magi sighed, releasing the Doctor and falling back down onto the bed weakly. "Nothing. I didn't know where I was or who he was when I woke up," Magi admitted.

"I need to put the IV back in. I was even able to transfuse you, thankfully. This is quite an impressively stocked sickbay you have," Dr. Sakaki stated, as he reattached the IV and made sure it was flowing properly.

"How do you feel?" Yoh asked foolishly.

 _Abandoned and betrayed. Like a tired old man. Worn to the bone. I hurt everywhere._ He couldn't speak the truth, not in front of either of them, and certainly not in front of the Major.

"Why do you always do that? Why are you always so damned stoic? Why can't you ever ask for help? If you needed money for something, why didn't you tell me?" Yoh demanded.

"Tch. As if you could help. I told you, you have no idea what it take to run this operation, the hit we took when the _Catastrophe_ was destroyed. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Major discovered my creative bookkeeping. But I never thought he'd think I was stealing from him, from all of you," he admitted in disgust.

Yoh frowned in confusion. "But you were. Two million dollars, most recently, but there were all those other…" he trailed off as Magi stared at him in shock and sudden understanding.

"You're the one who told him? The Major is a brilliant man, but finances aren't his forte. He spends money like it's ocean water, like there's always more, sometimes on the most ridiculous things. He's far too impulsive. But at least he understands on some level that we have to work for it. You seem to think this is all just a game," Magi accused.

"Screw you! If you don't want my help, fine, but don't tell me I don't know how to work. Not when my bank account is dozens the size of yours," Yoh boasted.

"Tch. Like that's an accomplishment. Not counting whatever damage was done to the hotel room, my combined accounts right now are about enough to buy dinner for two," Magi admitted in frustration, both because everything he'd worked so hard for was gone, and because he pictured Yoh seated across him at a candlelit table. _I'm as much a fool as the Major for a young, pretty face._

"Bullshit. Last time I checked, you had close to four million dollars in your account," Yoh snapped. "And that's without the two million. Although it apparently isn't really yours," Yoh qualified.

Magi rubbed his face with his hand. "I earned every damned penny, invested it wisely, and nurtured it. Then the _Catastrophe_ sank, and I was scrabbling for funds to replace what we'd lost: the ship, the library, gym equipment, a new pool table for you, our clothes, new toys for the kids, all of it."

"But the Major…" Yoh began uncertainly.

"Didn't know," Magi finished for him. "Because he hid a fatal medical condition from us, one that the Queen and B.A.B.E.L. miraculously saved him from, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen again, that the stress and strain wouldn't get to him some other way."

Yoh was looking at him in wide-eyed disbelief. "What, so instead of telling him the truth, telling us the truth, and letting us help, you shouldered our entire financial burden yourself, in secret? So the Major isn't allowed to risk his own health, but you can risk yours? Don't think I haven't noticed how tired you look all the time, how brittle you've become. I mean, you've always been an uptight prick, but lately you've had a stick up your ass the size of a telephone pole."

That imagery was surprisingly both appalling and appealing, which just proved it had been far too long since he'd hooked up.

"How much do we need, to stay afloat, literally and figuratively?" Yoh asked.

Magi's brow creased, he could feel his confused scowl. "Nothing. We're fine for now, now that I sold the villa. That gave us breathing space for at least another two weeks, and by then, hopefully I…" His eyebrows rose into his hair as Yoh pressed his hand over his mouth. He had the most absurd urge to lick it, just to see the expression on the young man's face.

"How much money do we need to stay in business for the next three months, to meet all our obligations, purchases, loan interest, operations, everything, without you juggling funds and digging yourself an early grave," Yoh demanded. Then he removed his hand.

Magi didn't even need to crunch numbers to answer. He was painfully aware of their operating costs, of the money they needed but didn't have. "$56 million."

"That's all? Alright then. Including the $4 million to reimburse you, an even $60 million. I'll have the $56 million wired into our main account and the $4 million to yours tomorrow morning," Yoh claimed ridiculously.

"Can't you ever take anything seriously?" Magi snapped in frustration.

Yoh crossed his arms and glared at him. "I just offered to give you $60 million, and that's the thanks I get?"

"Tch. Where would you get $60 million from? Even you can't hack those kinds of funds," Magi replied.

Yoh glared at him. "You're doubly an ass, for challenging me like that. I'm almost tempted to do it, to prove you wrong. But I'm not about to risk getting caught, when I already have all the money we need. I'm going to take the money out of my own accounts. That still leaves me with just under $33 million. You should know, in case something unexpected comes up. Oh, and it's not a loan, it's a gift, so don't worry about nonsense like interest rates and installment plans. After all, P.A.N.D.R.A. is my family, and you're never supposed to loan money to family, right?" he added with a grin that made Magi want to bind him in his hair and...

Magi forced the lustful thought down and stared at him in consternation. "Yoh, if you're being serious, tell me where you got your hands on that kind of money," he asked warily, dreading what the young man might say, the powerful enemies he might have made. _Did he rob the Mafia? The Yakuza?_ _Or has he taken side jobs as a hitman?_

"My business, Fuji Web & Graphic Design," Yoh said, pulling his wallet out of his pocket, extracting a business card, and handing it to him. "I designed the artwork and the logo on the card, too," he added proudly.

Magi studied the card skeptically. It was made of cardstock that resembled rice paper, with a logo depicting Mt. Fuji, and a full color image of Mt. Fuji rendered in Japanese water color style, with a pseudo Asian looking font listing only a web site and e-mail address, no phone. "Yoshi Fujiura, CEO and Lead Designer. You used your real surname?" he asked incredulously.

"Of course. Why shouldn't I? It's a legitimate business, you can check the Dun & Bradstreet listing, and outside of P.A.N.D.R.A. and B.A.B.E.L., and I guess, the U.S.E.I., no one knows my last name, and it's a common enough one no one would make the connection. I'm on the C.R.I.M.E. list as Banshee, just as you're listed as Medusa," he replied with a cocky grin.

Magi shook his head. He'd changed Yoh, to Yoshi. Leave it to Yoh with his unique sonic power and his loud, pushy personality to give himself the Japanese name meaning "quiet". It was both frustrating and adorable, though he was pretty sure it was the painkillers in the IV that were making him think the latter.

0 0 0

Sakaki listened surreptitiously while he ate in the corner of the room. Both men had apparently forgotten he was there. B.A.B.E.L. hadn't had any idea P.A.N.D.R.A. was in severe financial trouble. Or had been, until a moment ago. And to his knowledge, no one in B.A.B.E.L. had known about Yoh's side business either.

It was no wonder they were destitute, he thought, as he ate appreciatively: Kobe beef fillet, lobster tail, fingerling potatoes, and asparagus, and an excellent vintage of wine and a champagne glass filled with chocolate mousse for dessert . Their kitchens were apparently still well stocked, as part of the smokescreen Magi had been generating.

He'd check on Kaoru again after dinner. She was in her own plush, private cabin, one that had been designed and appointed specifically for her when the ship was acquired from what Momiji said, one truly fit for a queen. Minamoto wouldn't be happy to hear about it at all, any of it: the large four poster bed and other antique Western style furniture, the jewelry armoire filled with gold and platinum jewelry encrusted with precious gems, the walk-in closet filled with designer clothes from all over the world, the enormous TV and video game consoles with every game imaginable, and a host of other things Minamoto could never afford for Kaoru on his government salary.

Sakaki had no idea how they were going to get out of here. Kaoru could fly them out, of course, once she awoke, unless they forcibly prevented her from leaving somehow, through ECMs or other means, coercion being the most likely. At least he was a well treated captive. Better gourmet fare than chained to a bulkhead in the bilge, at least.


	5. Chapter 5 - Rumors of My Death

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 5 – Rumors of My Death

Andy Hinomiya sat in the motel room staring in disbelief at the TV screen, the family album he'd been working so intently on forgotten with the first Special Report. Now he was standing in front of the TV, eyes riveted to the screen, his cell phone in his shaking hand, as the explosion was shown for the third time during the special news broadcast, this time in slow motion.

"… _confirming our report, that P.A.N.D.R.A.'s Kyousuke Hyoubu, No. 1 on the C.R.I.M.E. list and his lieutenant, known only as Medusa, No. 3 on the list, were both killed tonight, in the culmination of a daring yet tragically catastrophic raid by as yet unknown parties that resulted in at least 35 deaths, 104 injuries, with as many as 206 as yet unaccounted for, and multi-million dollars of property damage to the exclusive Matador Hotel in Maldrid, Sprain. Wait a moment. This just in: our sources now confirm that also dead are Siren, No. 4 on the C.R.I.M.E. list, and Banshee, No. 5, both also high ranking members of P.A.N.D.R.A. The two children are as yet unidentified._

"Emergency responders are still scouring the scene for victims and attempting to identify casualties, their efforts hampered by the refusal of the government to mobilize their own Special Advance Force ESPers, S.A.F.E., for fear of public backlash or possible retaliation by either the remnants of the criminal organization P.A.N.D.R.A. or the anti-ESPer terrorist group Normal People."

Andy had immediately doubted the story was true, even when he saw the damning footage, but as his calls to Kyousuke, Magi, Yoh and Momiji had all gone directly to voicemail over and over again, he began to fear that somehow the unthinkable had happened. Out of desperation, he'd even tried calling Minamoto of B.A.B.E.L., his number still programmed into his phone from when B.A.B.E.L. had tried to recruit him at the amusement park with Yugiri.

 _Yugiri!_ Andy belatedly remembered Kyousuke had given her a cell phone of her own, in case she was ever in a situation like in the Amusement Park, trapped and alone and in need of help, in case her telepathy ever failed her, due to ECMs or stress or other potential impediments. Andy didn't want to traumatize her further, if the story was true, and not some P.A.N.D.R.A. scheme – _please don't be true_ – and she'd somehow teleported to safety, but perhaps even hearing his voice over the phone would be better than not hearing it at all.

To his incredible relief, his call was answered after the first ring. "Andy!" she cried out.

He could hear the tears in her voice. The fist wrapped around his heart squeezed so tightly he fell to his knees beside the bed. "Yugiri," he choked out. "I heard… I saw… are you and the rest of the others safe?"

"We're all fine! The Major is only sleeping and will wake up soon, and Dr. Sakaki says Magi will be fine too, now that he removed all the bullets, and Kaoru will wake up soon, and Momiji, Yoh and I weren't hurt when we rescued everyone," the usually quiet girl chattered breathlessly.

He didn't want to upset her further, when she already must be completely traumatized, but he had to be sure. "They're still alive? Kyousuke is alright? When you say asleep, do you mean he's unconscious? Did he hit his head? Did anyone say the word concussion? And… wait! Dr. Sakaki? Are you all prisoners of B.A.B.E.L.? Why didn't they take your ph… they're tracking the call!" He wouldn't hang up yet. He doubted they were in Comerica, and it would take a while to mobilize the U.S.E.I. against him.

"No, the Major was drugged. He'll be fine. And Dr. Sakaki and Kaoru are our guests, on the _Catastrophe_ ," Yugiri clarified.

Andy felt a wave of relief. They had captured two of B.A.B.E.L., not the other way around. But who had drugged Kyousuke, and with what? And would Magi truly recover? If he died, Kyousuke would need him there, though he wouldn't admit it.

"You're sure Kyousuke and Magi will be fine, that everyone is alright?" Andy asked skeptically.

"I'm sure. Dr. Sakaki is a wonderful doctor, and he's a good man. Yoh and Momiji had me make sure he was really helping, and I could see everything he was thinking. He's a lot like you and the Major. He has been hurt by Normals and even other ESPers, and he doesn't trust anyone, and is very lonely, even though he has good people around him now who want to be his friends," Yugiri said sagely, with a wisdom and insight far beyond her years.

Andy winced. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help protect you all. I'm going to come back as soon as I can, Yugiri, but if you're all really alright, there are still some things I need to do," he explained guiltily, heading for the nearly complete family album, and flipping to the pages with pictures of her, and of Kyousuke, needing to see their faces.

"I know. I have your watch and your promise," Yugiri said confidently.

"I should go, in case anyone has intercepted this call. Stay safe, and give Kyousuke my lo… tell him I said hello, and that I'm glad he's safe again, alright?" he asked, resolutely turning off the TV, so he wouldn't see any more false and upsetting images.

"I will. Goodnight Andy," Yugiri said.

His heart ached at the soft words, the ones he usually heard before she fell asleep, when he was reading to her in her cabin.

"Goodnight Yugiri," he replied, his voice catching on her name _. I love you and miss you. All of you._ Swallowing hard, he ended the call, then popped the battery and chip out of the phone for good measure, and gathered up the family album and few remaining loose pictures, and his already packed bag. He'd find a different motel to sleep in, in a different city, just in case anyone had somehow traced the calls he'd made. There was no indication of who had attacked P.A.N.D.R.A., but he wasn't taking any chances.

0 0 0

B.A.B.E.L. Agent Kenji Yamamoto woke abruptly, to his mission partner Keiko Otoyama shaking him. "What is it? What's wrong?" he asked, springing to his feet, able to tell even before seeing the clock that she wasn't merely waking him for his shift.

"Our target's on the move," Keiko replied, stuffing the directional mic into her bag.

"What the hell? Why? Has he made us?" Kenji cursed, slipping on his shoes. He was already dressed, of course. _Did we screw up?_ _What spooked Hinomiya?_

"No, it's worse than that. I'll explain on the way. Come on, or we'll lose him," she snapped, heading for the door.

Their long-term mission of tailing their quarry Andy Hinomiya while he was in the U.S. was nothing like their usual jobs for B.A.B.E.L. Kenji's psychometry and Keiko's telepathy were useless on Hinomiya. They had to keep constant audio or visual tabs on a man specially trained by one of the strongest militaries in the world. If they didn't have such advanced equipment, they'd have lost him dozens of times over in the past weeks of their job.

Once they were in the car, following the sophisticated tracking device on Hinomiya's car, one registered under a false name that he'd retrieved from a garage soon after arriving in the U.S., Keiko let out a still tense sigh of relief. "Damn, that was close. I need to call base and find out what part if any of the news story I overheard was true. It sounds like it was a false story, from Hinomiya's side of a phone call to P.A.N.D.R.A., but he was pretty panicky before that," she explained, as she broke communications silence and called their base in Japan on her scrambled satellite phone, while he continued to tail Hinomiya out of line of sight, using the tracking beacon and screen. Hinomiya was obviously already skittish and would no doubt instantly spot them as a tail.

After speaking the proper code phrases and apparently receiving the correct countersigns, Keiko began talking about an attack on P.A.N.D.R.A., and news story about Kyousuke Hyoubu and other key members of P.A.N.D.R.A. being killed.

Kenji's eyes widened at the implications. If the story was true, P.A.N.D.R.A. would no doubt retaliate in a devastating attack or series of attacks, against Maldrid or perhaps all of Sprain, if they couldn't determine who the true culprits were. They might even attack B.A.B.E.L. and all of Japan.

Kenji paled when he heard Dr. Sakaki and Kaoru Akashi had been taken prisoner by P.A.N.D.R.A., making the second worst case scenario, an attack on Japan, all the more likely. He listened tensely as his partner asked whether they should apprehend Hinomiya for a hostage exchange and acknowledged whatever new orders they'd been given, before ending the call.

"They need to verify what I heard, using our psychometrists. B.A.B.E.L. thought the news story was true, they thought Hyoubu and his people had been killed in that blast, and they also believed Kaoru Akashi had been killed as well. They'd been trying to contact Dr. Sakaki, without any luck. They were afraid he'd been inside the hotel, near the battle, and had died in the explosion, too. He was actually activated in the field while on vacation in Maldrid to try to save Hyoubu and Magi from the attack our precognitive network revealed.

"We're to maintain our distance and continue surveillance, and only act directly against Hinomiya if contacted to do so. The Children weren't activated for a mission, but Kaoru apparently acted on her own and was captured, along with Dr. Sakaki. They're hoping now to be able to negotiate their release due to the good will of protecting their people," Keiko said, doubt and disgust in equal parts in her voice. "Since when do we work for the bad guys like P.A.N.D.R.A.?"

"Since there are worse out there, like the Normal People, or foreign powers and private companies who want to see us all dead, or with collars and leashes, literally. Not everyone with powers is as lucky as we are, to work for B.A.B.E.L.," Kenji replied bitterly.

He was appalled by what he'd seen so far in Comerica, as he learned more and more about Hinomiya's life before P.A.N.D.R.A. He more than likely would have betrayed the U.S.E.I . and joined P.A.N.D.R.A. too. The U.S.E.I. had betrayed Hinomiya first, lying to him and callously using him, and then denying all association with him and turning him into an internationally wanted criminal. And now he was also wanted for a murder he never committed, the murder of U.S.E.I. Director Alan Walsh.

Ever since Kenji had seen Hinomiya working so diligently on that book of his, and finally gotten a glimpse of it, and discovered it wasn't some diabolical, nefarious plan of vengeance or terrorism, but a family album of the members of P.A.N.D.R.A., and then watched Hinomiya night after night pining over pictures of the little girl, Yugiri, who'd been raised as a lab experiment and weapon, but reminded Kenji painfully of his own baby sister Yuri, he'd begun to seriously doubt who were the heroes and who were the villains.

0 0 0

Hyoubu lay still, carefully concealing the fact that he was awake, aware, and thankfully fully mobile again, even though from the feel, smell and sounds, he was back on board the _Catastrophe_ , in his own cabin.

"Kyousuke!" an eager, relieved voice said, and his eyes snapped open, his deception no longer necessary.

"Kaoru? What are you doing aboard?" he asked in confusion. The last thing he remembered was falling with Magi, that traitor.

Then Kaoru's eyes filled with tears, and his heart began to hammer against his ribs, as his stomach knotted in dread.

"They killed them. Momiji and Yoh…" she choked out.

His eyes widened in horror and he sat up abruptly, reaching out his power frantically, searching for Momiji and Yoh in desperation and denial, even as his cabin door opened, and Momiji walked in, alive and well.

"We told you, they got what they deserved," she claimed, apparently having overheard her from the corridor, which meant his door hadn't been fully sealed. "They would have kept trying to kill us, you included," Momiji said coldly and impatiently.

"Yoh is alright?" Kyousuke asked, needing to be sure.

"He's fine. He's in with Magi, who saved your life, and isn't a traitor," she added.

He frowned. "Yoh found the evidence…"

"Magi was getting creative with our assets in an attempt to keep us in business, without worrying you into a heart attack. He'd already used up all his own private funds, and needed to sell the villa to keep us afloat for two more weeks. But we're now alright for the next three months, thanks to a $56 million gift from a certain surprise benefactor by the name of Yoh Fujiura, who runs a thriving side business as a web and graphics designer. And speaking of surprise benefactors, B.A.B.E.L. sent Dr. Sakaki to rescue you and Magi, because of a prediction you'd both die. He's temporarily our guest, as is Kaoru, but B.A.B.E.L. is going to likely want them back, sooner rather than later. It's already been a number of hours," Momiji explained, confusing him more than enlightening him.

"Give me your hand," he demanded impatiently. He'd learn what he needed far faster if he gleaned it directly from her mind.

"Well, since you asked so nicely," she said with a smirk, but held out her hand.

Thoughts and images flooded his mind. She made it easy for him, bringing what he needed to know close to the surface, or maybe just doing so to ensure he didn't probe too deeply. He'd respect her privacy, since he didn't sense any deception in her, any attempt to keep him from reading certain thoughts.

He sighed. Only yesterday he'd trusted his people far more than this. But Magi's betrayal cut deep and raw into the scars already in his heart and head. Except he hadn't betrayed him after all. He let go of her hand, having gleaned all the information he needed to.

"On the bright side, the world now mistakenly believes you, Magi, Yoh and I are dead, though I'm sure B.A.B.E.L. is aware of the truth," she added.

That would be very convenient for them, except… "Hinomiya!" he cried in concern.

"Don't worry. He talked to Yugiri, when he couldn't get a hold of any of the rest of us. We all received increasingly worried voicemails from him, but she spoke to him after that. He knows you're alive, safe and recovering," Momiji assured him. "He's apparently at least temporarily disabled his phone, but I'm certain you'll be able to call him later."

He frowned, looking at Kaoru, who was standing there quietly, still looking upset. "Then who died, my Queen?" he asked.

"Everyone on the roof, the people attacking us. Momiji and Yoh blew them up. The helicopter, too. And people in the hotel must have been killed and injured as well.

Kyousuke sighed. Kaoru wouldn't care that they were only Normals. She didn't differentiate between ESPers and Normals: they were all people of equal value, to his Queen.

"I want to go home, with Dr. Sakaki," Kaoru pleaded in a soft, hurt voice nothing like her usual self.

 _Damn it._ It was clear from her demeanor that she needed to be with her two friends, and that annoying jerk Minamoto.

"Is anyone seriously injured enough that we still need Dr. Sakaki's services?" Hyoubu asked.

"No. Magi's recovering and no one else was hurt," Momiji assured him.

"Alright. Get us close enough to land that they can take one of the launches. They can take a plane to Japan from there," he offered magnanimously.

"You're just going to let them go?" Momiji asked in surprise.

"Now is not the time to escalate our conflict with B.A.B.E.L. Besides, how can I resist anything my Queen asks of me?" he said smoothly.

"Thank you, Kyousuke," Kaoru said solemnly.

It hurt, seeing her like this, her natural ebullience replaced by grief and sorrow. She looked broken and defeated. He normally despised touching anyone, but he desperately wanted to hug her. But he wouldn't risk her stiffening in his arms, or pushing him away, not now. He needed to speak to Magi, to reassure himself that he truly hadn't been betrayed.

As soon as Kaoru and Dr. Sakaki were off the ship, he'd order the crew to head back to Japan.

0 0 0

"She's alive?" Minamoto asked in shock and disbelief, afraid he'd hallucinated the words, that his grief had driven him insane, even though Director Tsubomi had teleported over to his home in person to tell him and Aoi and Shiho.

Shiho ran from the room, heading for the room that had once been the girls' bedroom, before they'd moved into their own trio of modest houses earlier that year, the room they still stayed in occasionally when they visited him overnight, clearly needing proof of her own.

"Yes," Tsubomi assured him. "I came as soon as I found out. We have agents in Comerica, watching Andy Hinomiya, and they overheard a phone conversation. We verified it with our psychometrists. She and Dr. Sakaki are both alive and uninjured, on the _Catastrophe_.

"P.A.N.D.R.A. has them?" Minamoto demanded, the giddy relief that had been flooding him instantly quelled.

She held up her hands in appeasement. "You know Kyousuke won't hurt her, and apparently Dr. Sakaki not only helped Kyousuke and his man Magi escape from their attackers, he's been treating their injuries. And he's a psychic too. They won't harm him. If anything, they're probably trying to convince him to join them."

That should have reassured Minamoto, but he knew his friend too well. Sakaki was currently a member of B.A.B.E.L., mostly because he was there as well. But Sakaki was nearly as mistrustful of Normals as P.A.N.D.R.A. and he liked the finer things in life. It was quite possible he could be swayed to join them, in the right circumstances, given the right enticements.

Shiho came running into the room, crying, one of Kaoru's old girlie magazines clutched in her hands, and Minamoto's heart leapt into his throat, until she smiled through her tears. "She's alright! She's alive! She's not even hurt!' Then she frowned. "But I don't think I've ever felt her so upset. Aoi!" Shiho cried.

Minamoto tried to dive onto both girls, not to stop them, but to go with them, but Director Tsubomi tackled him, and they vanished. "Idiot! You know better! She's only just recovered from her earlier teleport and she hadn't compensated for your weight and mass. You would have completely thrown her teleport off."

"I can't let them be there alone!" Minamoto demanded frantically.

"Of course not. If you calm down, I'll let you come with me. We need to get all four of them back safely," Tsubomi assured him, picking up the magazine Shiho had dropped. "I know where they are," she said, holding out her hand to him.

He took it eagerly, felt a familiar and disconcerting lurch, and then suddenly he was in a different place.

"… to give them back," Hyoubu said, sounding tolerantly amused.

"Shiho, Aoi, did you have to come so quickly? I haven't had dessert yet," Sakaki complained.

Shiho and Aoi were hugging Kaoru protectively, glaring at Hyoubu and Momiji. Kaoru was wearing clothes Minamoto had never seen before, the sweater clinging and low cut, something a grown woman should be wearing, not a girl. But Kaoru didn't look like a girl. She looked like a woman, her face full of grief and tears, in spite of her friends. And then she saw him, and her eyes lit up, her whole face changed, flooding with relief, with love.

"Minamoto!" She tore across the room and ran into his arms, and he was hugging her, holding her. He never thought he'd see her or hear her or feel her or smell her again. Only she smelled wrong, like exotic perfume, instead of strawberry shampoo.

"It's alright, Kaoru. We've come to take you home," he assured her, his words a promise, his glare at Hyoubu a challenge.

To his surprise, Hyoubu smiled at him, not his usual superior smirk of disdain, but something else. He looked almost relieved to see him. "Excellent. We were just telling my Queen and the good doctor that we would take them to shore, so they could take a plane back to Japan, but it appears you've saved us the trouble."

Sakaki sighed and stood. "I guess it's time to go, then." He headed for the single occupied bed in the room, and Minamoto immediately recognized Magi. Yoh was standing beside the bed protectively, but he allowed Sakaki to approach.

Sakaki checked the IV. "Once this one runs out, you won't need another. But don't forget to take the oral antibiotics I gave you."

"I will. Thank you, Doctor. Remember, there's always a place here for you, if you ever decide to leave B.A.B.E.L.," Magi offered, making Minamoto tense.

Sakaki laughed. "Your cafeteria's certainly better than ours. And I'll miss the view," he added, eyeing Momiji appreciatively.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Leave."

"Nothing to say to me, dear brother?" Tsubomi challenged.

"Take good care of my Queen," Hyoubu replied predictably.

"I'm not _your_ anything," Kaoru snapped.

Minamoto saw a flash of something in Hyoubu's eyes, relief or approval.

"I'll take Minamoto home, and Kaoru and Shiho. You take _him_ ," Aoi said to Tsubomi, indicating Sakaki. And then they were back at Minamoto's apartment.

Minamoto looked at Aoi in concern, but she seemed fine, still drained from her earlier fatigue, but not dangerously so. Kaoru, however, looked completely wrecked, but she was here, she was alive. His girls were safe.


	6. Chapter 6 - Once Upon a Dream

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 6 – Once Upon a Dream

Hyoubu looked around at the long faces on the deck of the new _Queen of Catastrophe_ and sighed. How was it possible for all of them to miss a single man so much? It had only been a month-and-a-half since Hinomiya had gone, two weeks since he'd called and spoken to Yugiri, but it felt like a year. Hyoubu had hoped this little side trip to Japan would provide the diversion his crew needed. Both Yoh and Yugiri in particular had become increasingly morose, feeding off one another's loneliness as much as consoling one another. Yoh had again, at least temporarily, become Yugiri's second favorite bedtime story reader, those nights he was unable to fill the role.

Their melancholy was contagious. Even thoughts of seeing his Queen again couldn't keep Hyoubu's own wistfulness at bay. It was frustrating to know that it wouldn't have been so bad, if it was anyone but Hinomiya. He'd be able to use his psychometry if it was anyone else, to touch Yugiri's treasured watch and see him, to know if he was well, if not happy, but the vestigial power that yet kept telepaths at bay still blocked even his psychometry.

On the bright side, that it did so was another strong indication that Hinomiya's power wasn't truly lost, but merely temporarily suppressed. Although Hinomiya had never welcomed his power, he had seemed more lost without it. Hyoubu knew that was their fault. For the first time, Hinomiya truly wanted to be a psychic, because they all were. Hyoubu only hoped Hinomiya found whatever it was that he was seeking quickly, and returned to them.

Hyoubu almost visibly winced at the mournful sigh Momotaro let out, as he sat slumped on Yugiri's shoulder, when he normally would have been chattering eagerly, and flying about her in circles, in an effort to cheer his dejected friend. Their smallest member missed Hinomiya nearly as much as Yugiri did.

When they docked in the special covered facility Muscle had rented for them, Hyoubu brought Yugiri and Momotaro outside into it, with him, Magi, Momiji and Yoh.

Muscle's eyes widened. "What happened? I thought everything has been fine, since Maldrid. Did you lose someone? Is someone sick or injured or captured?" he asked Hyoubu softly, in concern.

"Yes and no," Hyoubu responded, the thought of Hinomiya being sick or injured or captured without their knowledge making his heart pound. "They miss Hinomiya," he explained, carefully excluding himself, though he missed him just as fiercely. Perhaps even more so, though he was loathe to admit it, even to himself.

Muscle smiled in relief. "Well then, that's something I can actually help with," he said cryptically.

Wild, irrational hope flooded Hyoubu. _Is Hinomiya here?_

"I was about to contact you, but when you called me instead, I figured I'd keep it as a surprise. This crate is for you. For all of you. It's from Hinomiya. It arrived this morning, with instructions for me to give it to you, the next time I saw you," Muscle explained.

The disappointment quickly turned to intrigue as Hyoubu looked at the wooden crate. _What could Himomiya have sent us?_

"Maybe your new watch is inside, Yugiri," Yoh suggested.

The little girl shook her head violently. "No. He said he'd bring it to me. He wouldn't send it." Her voice was sharp with alarm and fear and doubt, tears threatening in her voice, as she clutched Hinomiya's watch to her chest, as she'd done countless dozens of times since he left.

"Why don't we open it," Hyoubu suggested, and so saying, he pulled out the nails using his telekinesis, and pulled off the top using his power as well. Yoh lifted Yugiri so she could see inside. There was a protective layer of packing paper and bubble wrap, which Hyoubu encouraged Yugiri to help him remove. Underneath were a number of boxes, almost all in bright wrapping paper, with colorful ribbons and envelopes attached.

Hyoubu lifted the top package and looked at the envelope of the attached card, and then held it out to Yoh. "Yoh, because you're the most impatient," Hyoubu said, smirking when Yoh glared at him, and then the young man blushed, as he looked down and realized Hinomiya was the one who had written those exact words on the envelope, which was the same shade of gold as his eyes.

"Ha, ha," Yoh grumbled, but he accepted the package eagerly, tore into the envelope, and opened the card. "Tch," he said, but his cheeks colored and he didn't show them what was written inside the card, which he tucked carefully into his jacket.

Hyoubu felt unaccountably disgruntled at not seeing the contents of the card.

Then Yoh opened the package and pulled out a paperback, pocket-sized book and laughed, for the first time in two weeks. He showed it to the rest of them: _An Expert's Guide to Cheating at Pool_. From the neat crease in the cover near the spine, the book had clearly been read, which meant Hinomiya would no doubt expect each of the cheats it outlined.

Next was a narrow, rectangular box even lighter than the book, wrapped in paper the exact hue of blue as Momiji's hair, and a card addressed to her. "Momiji, because beauty like yours deserves to be seen." Hyoubu handed the gift and card to her. She read the card and then opened the package and smirked, picking up the microscopic blue string bikini top and thong with one finger, and shaking her head in mock dismay.

Hyoubu couldn't help but notice Yoh's scowl of annoyance, which actually matched his own thoughts rather alarmingly well. He'd have to read that card later as well.

The next gift was larger and heavier, wrapped in pinstriped grey paper, and tied with a matte black silk ribbon. Hyoubu didn't need to look to see who it was addressed to, but he did anyway, just in case Hinomiya had written anything special for Magi. Of course, he had: "Magi, because every emperor needs a vizier."

Yoh laughed. "I bet it's the movie _Aladdin_ and a robe! You'd make a perfect Jafar, and Momotaro could be your Iago," Yoh teased.

"Keep it up and you'll be eating crackers," Momotaro threatened.

Magi carefully removed the paper, one piece of tape at a time, instead of ripping it as the others had, revealing a book, but a hardcover one, this time: _From Magi to Merlin: Right Hand to the King_. Magi smiled ruefully, no doubt remembering Hyoubu's bitingly teasing reaction to the book Magi had given him for his birthday.

Hyoubu found himself smiling in true happiness, feeling at peace, for the first time in a month-and-half. For the moment, in spirit, at least, their whole family was together again.

He removed the thick layer of tissue paper and bubble wrap covering the next gift. This one was truly impressive, taking up almost all of the remaining volume of the crate.

"That one _has_ to be for Yugiri. It's the biggest, and from the shape, it's gotta be a dollhouse. But that idiot Hinomiya should know Yugiri doesn't particularly like dolls," Yoh chided softly, but not quite quietly enough.

Hyoubu had assumed the same, but his eyes widened in intrigue as he read the envelope. "It's not for Yugiri. It's for Momotaro."

"Me?" Momotaro squeaked in surprise, and he began flying in spirals overhead, taking to the air for something other than necessity for the first time in weeks. "Open it, open it!"

"I'll read the envelope and card to you first," Hyoubu gently scolded. "Rodent, because every dragon deserves his own castle to protect." He opened the envelope for Momotaro, and revealed a card with a golden, winged dragon the same shade as Momotaro's fur, holding its stomach, as if it had a stomachache, a dented silver helmet and broken lance lying at its feet. With Momotaro's permission Hyoubu opened and read the card aloud. Inside was the word "Rodent" in Hinomiya's elegant script, above the card's message, "Sorry you had a bad knight." Below it he'd written, "I'll do my best to be a better one. May you never have the need to defend your new home as fiercely as you defended your old one. Thanks for forgiving me, Andy."

"Yugiri, why don't you help our friend open his gift?" Hyoubu suggested. He was hopeful and almost certain that Hinomiya would not have forgotten Yugiri, but just in case she was disappointed with what he gave her, he wanted her to help Momotaro. She was nearly as hard to please as he was, when it came to gifts, and he was notorious. He didn't expect Hinomiya to have gotten him anything, or for him to like it, if he had, though he'd pretend to, for the sake of the others. This one time, he wouldn't be their dark cloud, when they all desperately needed the sunshine Hinomiya had so thoughtfully provided.

He pulled the present out of the crate, and she obediently began pulling away the paper, Momotaro's excitement catching. Underneath the careful layers of paper was a beautiful birdhouse in the shape of a castle, with glittery turrets and a drawbridge door large enough to easily fit Momotaro. He eagerly went inside and squealed. "There's another present inside! I got two presents!" He sounded like a child on his birthday. "It smells like..." there was the sound of paper tearing. "It is! Sunflower seeds, my favorite!" he chittered and chattered happily.

When Hyoubu looked at Yugiri to see her reaction, her eyes were shining, but in joy, not in tears, he realized to his incredible relief.

 _Well done, Hinomiya. I know the present I would give you, for all this, if you were here._ He smirked, imagining how Hinomiya would react to an uncharacteristic hug and a kiss on the lips from him. Only to tease him, of course.

Hyoubu looked around at his happy family, raising a brow at the way Magi's hair was looping over Yoh's shoulders, in a possessive manner. _Is that conscious or unconscious, on Magi's part?_ The younger man appeared surprisingly oblivious to the feather-light touch. Or perhaps so used to it, he no longer even noticed? _Interesting._

He had forgiven Magi for his deception the day Kaoru left the _Catastrophe_ , though he'd made the man promise never to conceal something from him again, regardless of what he feared it might do to his health.

Hyoubu reached into the crate for what he thought might be the last gift and froze. There was a second present under the next box, as well as a stack of additional cards wrapped in a rubber band. He pulled out the top, thick, heavy present, which was wrapped in what he at first took to be flowered paper, until he saw the dozens of tiny pink and purple winged pixies peering out from behind the grasses, leaves, stems and colorful petals, the old-fashioned traditional kind of fairies, not the Disney kind. Instead of a card, there was a large tag the size and shape of a bookmark tucked under the grass green tulle ribbon on the package with Yugiri's name spelled out in fairies on it. She touched her name lovingly, but Kyoubu saw a glimmer of disappointment in her eyes. Everyone else had received a card but her.

Yugiri opened her gift with as much care for the paper as Magi had shown. Inside was one of Yugiri's favorite books, the exact same 1915 edition of _Peter and Wendy_ that had been lost with their entire library when the original _Queen of Catastrophe_ sank, the printing with dozens of illustrations, and the added chapter at the end, _When Wendy Grew Up. An Afterthought._ The first book Hinomiya had read to her. Her eyeswidened in delight, but then welled with tears, and she swallowed hard.

Hyoubu winced. Perhaps not the best choice, considering the ending of the book, where Peter has waited too long to return and Wendy is all grown up, and the mother of a daughter of her own, Jane, forever denied Neverland and Peter's companionship because of it.

But then Yugiri opened the book and her eyes widened when she saw Andy had given her a card after all. A green envelope the same shade as the ribbon had been tucked between the title page and frontispiece of the book. She handed Hyoubu the treasure of her book and with trembling hands opened the card.

Hyoubu peered over her shoulder and saw there was a picture of the Disney version of Wendy looking out of the window of her house longingly into the night sky. He winced again.

She sniffed loudly, fighting bravely against her tears, and opened the card. Inside was a picture of Peter and Wendy, and her brothers, flying hand in hand, over the city. She looked intently at the perfectly formed block lettering of her card, which differed from Andy's other writing, which had been in cursive, and then her face burst into a bright, wide smile.

Hyoubu carefully read over her shoulder. Inside the card was preprinted with the words, "We'll be together again before you know it! All you need is a little faith, trust and pixie dust," and Andy's carefully written correction below it. "All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust – J. M. Barrie." And then below that, "Please have faith in me, Yugiri, and trust that I'm not as foolish as Peter. I'll come back in a few more weeks, at the most, not years. I don't have pixie dust, or a ship that flies like Captain Hook's pirate ship or the _Catastrophe_ , but the world is full of planes that do. I'll see you soon, I promise. Take care of everyone for me until then. Love, Andy."

"I can't believe he got the perfect gift for everyone!" Yoh complained. "He's five for five."

"Six for five," Momotaro corrected. "I liked both my presents," he crowed.

"OK, fine, six. But now it's your turn, Old Man," Yoh challenged.

Hyoubu really didn't want to open his gift in front of the others and have to feign enjoyment or show his disappointment, when they were all so pleased. The only thing Hyoubu wanted, the only thing he had ever wanted, was to have his family and friends safe and happy all around him. And the next gift was far too small and flat to be Hinomiya.

It was beautifully wrapped in Japanese rice paper, and looked like another book, though larger and wider and thicker than any of the other books. Probably some scholarly tome on emperors or kings, or something like Magi had given him for his birthday. His gift also only had a tag, though not an elaborate one, like Yugiri's. He hoped that like with Yugiri's gift, a card might be inside.

He carefully removed the paper and stared in surprise. The cover and pages of the book appeared to also be made of rice paper, the former reinforced with cardboard, the title _Our Family_ written upon it, both in English lettering and Kanji.

Hyoubu opened it and was mesmerized. It was a family tree, a history, a scrapbook, but it wasn't blank and empty inside, as he'd expected, waiting for him to fill the pages. Instead, inside, on every page, were photographs and careful captions and paragraphs. Every man, woman and child in P.A.N.D.R.A., those who lived aboard _Catastrophe_ , at least, was contained inside. Hyoubu's own picture and description were proudly displayed on the left of the first page, on the patriarch spot, but the matriarch section was surprisingly blank. Hyoubu would have thought Hinomiya would have put his Queen's picture there. He must not have had one.

A number of the pictures of the others had apparently been taken on Hinomiya's phone, the one they'd given him, mostly in secret, from when he had been spying on them, but printed on photograph paper. There were even pictures of Muscle and a number of his men, in the pages behind, from when they'd brought the original _Catastrophe_ in for repairs.

But on the pages behind them were older photographs: a picture of his home in Japan, and others decades old, of his foster father and foster sister. And in the following pages, photographs of all his dead comrades, his fellow soldiers, at the height of their youth and health.

Behind those were photos of various members of B.A.B.E.L., including another few of his sister, as well as photos of Queen and her two friends, and even of Minamoto, Sakaki and the others.

Tucked into the very back of the book was an envelope that stated, "Please open this card in private, Hyoubu."

The album must have taken Andy days, even weeks, to complete. He pictured Andy, hunched over the desk in a hotel in whatever city he'd found himself in that day, carefully cutting, pasting, writing. Hyoubu was both moved and frustrated beyond words. That time could have been spent with them. _I want Andy here with us. With me. Where he belongs._

He blinked at the fiercely possessive thought, and at his silent use of Andy's given name in his thoughts, for the first time.

"Damn it. I give up. He's perfect. The ass," Yoh complained, without much rancor.

Hyoubu turned back to Andy's picture and gently caressed it with his fingertip. _Yes, he is._

He closed the book and tucked it under his arm, and then lifted the stack of cards from the crate. He flipped through them. There looked to be one for every single member of those aboard the Catastrophe, and from the feel of them, each contained a gift card inside. He had no idea how much money Andy had, but he suspected it couldn't be much, and that he'd likely nearly bankrupted himself with these gifts. Although he wasn't a fool, and he knew he'd need enough to survive for the next few weeks, from what he'd written Yugiri.

Hyoubu handed the stack of cards to Magi. "Please deliver these to the others. I'm going to be in my cabin for a while," he instructed, and then he teleported, bringing the book and safely hidden card with him.

He set them down on his bed and made certain his door was locked. He did not want to be disturbed. Then he opened the card, which was also of Japanese design, with no preprinted saying written inside, but there was an entire letter written within, and surprisingly, a second envelope.

 _Kyousuke,_

 _Forgive me for using your given name without permission, but I find myself at more than one crossroads. I have yet to find my birth parents. I've visited the government orphanage I grew up in, the government school I was educated in, and the military base I trained on, in secret. All are as horrible as I remembered._

 _What am I doing here? What does it matter who my biological parents are? If they cared anything for me, they would never have abandoned me. I might have been born to them, but I was never a part of their family. I was never part of any family. Until I met you._

 _I need to lay the final ghosts of my past to rest, before I can come home. To try to clear my name, at least. I can see the way ahead clearly now, but I cannot yet move forward. Once I cross that bridge, it will burn beneath my feet. You hold my bridge in your hands, Kyousuke._

 _I know you've had a specific dream, for a number of decades. All I ask is that you remember it is not truly your dream, but the vision of a single possible future a dead dolphin saw over half a century ago. You're a student of both literature and history. You know in the Greek tragedies, the characters in the myths who listened to oracles and followed prophecies were time and again tricked and manipulated into their own doom, into creating the future they feared, instead of the one they desired._

 _I believe in fate, but I also believe in free choice. I truly believe I was destined to meet you, that every trial I survived was necessary, in order to lead me to you. But though we can calmly bow to the supposed inevitability of fate and follow someone else's dream, we can instead forge our own, moving forward kicking and screaming and struggling into the future we craft, the one we choose to create for ourselves._

 _You hold that power, Kyousuke. Please remember that, and open the envelope._

 _Regardless of what you decide, I will always be part of our family. I know who you are to me. Who I am to you remains to be seen._

 _Love,_

 _Andy_

Hyoubu reread the letter, looking for clues within Hinomiya's words to the envelope's contents he might have missed, and then in nearly breathless anticipation, and a small amount of trepidation, he opened the envelope.

Inside were two pictures, of two very different people. One was Kaoru Akashi, his Queen. The other was Andy. Under both were descriptions of them, including how and when they first met him. As with some of the other pictures and details, those of his dead comrades and of B.A.B.E.L and his foster family, he suspected his sister had aided Andy with the picture and information about his Queen.

Hyoubu frowned, with the sense that he was missing something important, not quite understanding the significance of the contents of the envelope. _Both of them are already in the album._ _What do these represent? Where do they go?_

He looked into Andy's striking eyes and then turned the envelope over in his hands. His eyes widened as he saw the shocking words written upon it. _"Partner or Matriarch? It takes two to love, and please don't hate me, Kyousuke, for speaking honestly, but I don't believe Kaoru Akashi shares my love for you. If Koichi Minamoto was a psychic, instead of a Normal, would you even have ever objected to their relationship, or would you have accepted the inevitable as the gentleman you are, and bowed out gracefully long ago? She has her own dream. I've finally seen clearly that you are mine."_

Hyoubu dropped the envelope, as if it had burned him, staring at it, stunned. _**Andy**_ _wishes to be…_ His immediate reaction was to laugh derisively at his audacity for even proposing such a thing and scoff that he only did so because he was half the world away. But his second was to acknowledge the depth of courage it took to voice such thoughts to him at all, especially those regarding his Queen.

The words from the card rang insistently in his ear, as if spoken by Andy's voice: "All I ask is that you remember it is not truly your dream, but the vision of a single possible future a dead dolphin saw over half a century ago." His superior's murder of his entire squad, his own murder, every action since then, for decades were all based upon that single dead dolphin's vision. His entire world view teetered and threatened to topple like a house of cards in a gentle breeze.

Andy was that gentle breeze. He had blown into his life, perhaps not quite gently, and slowly but surely changed his world, his entire world view. _I forgave him for his betrayal of me._ The enormity of that truly sank in for the first time. As did the rest of what happened afterwards. _I couldn't kill him, when he faced me. And he couldn't shoot me. Even though we'd been set against one another as enemies, we didn't want to harm one another, to fight. And then he saved me. I'd given up, I was drowning, and stopped fighting it, but he wouldn't let me die. He rescued me from the water, and then helped me thwart our enemies. He helped me save Yugiri. And then he saved me again. He did the impossible. He shut down my power, at the cost of his own._

He frowned in puzzlement, and looked down at his hands in surprise. He'd picked up the envelope, and his fingers were caressing one of the pictures. Andy's picture. His sane, rational mind might be confused, but his subconscious and his heart seemed to know how they felt.

 _A future without my Queen?_ The very words were his answer. _No._

 _It was never about Kaoru. She was never truly a person to me. She was a figurehead, an ideal, a rallying point. A hero, a martyr. Andy has always been… Andy._

 _A future. With Andy._ Impossibly he felt himself smiling.

He opened the book and laid Andy's picture in the spot next to his own, the one reserved for… not his Queen, but his consort. His partner. Co-leader of his current and future world.

And he felt his smile grow, the warmth of it spreading throughout his body.

He opened his desk drawer and rifled in it for the tube of glue he knew was inside. He carefully applied the glue to the back and pressed down the picture of Andy and the notation below it, securing it to the page beside his own. Then he flipped to the pages of B.A.B.E.L. and added the picture of Kaoru into the now conspicuously obvious blank spot on the page, as if Andy had known which he would choose. Or perhaps he had merely hoped. It did not matter.

All that mattered was Andy had his answer.


	7. Chapter 7 - Toasting the Enemy

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 7 – Toasting the Enemy

Koichi Minamoto stood in front of Kaoru Akashi's front door, adjusted his tie, took a deep breath, and then patted his pocket for the hundredth time to ensure the precious velvet box was still safely inside. He almost wished Sakaki was beside him, to say something stupid and inappropriate, and break the tension. He hadn't felt this nervous to see Kaoru since the first time he met her, six years ago, when she was only ten.

He forced the standard thought progression down firmly and resolutely. It didn't matter that he was ten years older, that he was her teacher and to all intents and purposes, her guardian, or that she was still in high school. He'd thought he'd lost her. Two weeks ago, he'd watched her seemingly die on a rooftop thousands of kilometers away, and his world had ended. He'd finally realized just how much he loved her, not as a father, as he loved Aoi and Shiho, but as the woman he should have spent the rest of his life with. And then he'd miraculously gotten her back.

This second chance was a gift. He wasn't about to waste it. He loved her, and tonight, he was going to finally asked her to spend the rest of her life by his side. They wouldn't get married immediately, of course. Not until she was 18, at the earliest, until she finished school. But they would make that commitment to one another tonight.

He lifted his hand to knock and froze, as he heard the surprised, all too familiar exclamation from inside: "Kyousuke!"

 _What is Hyoubu doing here, tonight of all nights?_ Minamoto automatically flattened himself against the wall and drew his gun, thankful that after a long debate with himself, he'd decided to wear it in the concealed holster under his suit jacket. P.A.N.D.R.A. and B.A.B.E.L. might have currently been enjoying a temporary truce thanks to all their recent mutual aid, but he knew that could end all too easily at any moment, and the psychics of P.A.N.D.R.A. were only some of the foes they faced.

He edged along the outer wall of Kaoru's tiny house to the front window, and peeked inside the crack left by the curtains. Kaoru would have left him breathless, in the long diaphanous gown she'd chosen to wear for the special evening he had planned, but instead, he gritted his teeth as he saw Hyoubu on one knee in front of Kaoru, kissing her hand. Then Hyoubu raised his head, obviously speaking, though his words were unintelligible, too soft to hear, and Hyoubu's back was to him, so he couldn't even attempt to read his lips. As Hyoubu continued to hold her hand, Kaoru's rapt attention made Minamoto uneasy, particularly as he saw her look of fond annoyance changing to a look of astonishment, then wonder, and then delight.

She squealed, her eyes unmistakably bright with tears, as she pulled Hyoubu to his feet, and then, to Minamoto's shock, she embraced Hyoubu, and his arms wrapped possessively around her. "I'm so happy!" Kaoru cried just loudly enough for Minamoto to hear, her face lit with joy, as she gazed lovingly at Hyoubu.

Minamoto stumbled away from the window, partly from shock, and partly because of the brief, dark, horrifying urge to pull the trigger of the gun in his hand, to put a bullet in the back of Hyoubu's head. He holstered his weapon, pressing his hand against his mouth, fighting back the wave of vomit that alien urge brought. Unlike Hyoubu, he wasn't a murderer, no matter how justified the reason, and his nemesis proposing to Kaoru first, and her accepting, was hardly justification for murder, no matter how it had personally gutted him.

He wasn't consciously aware of making it to his car, getting in, or driving away. A while later he stared in confusion at a second familiar door, as the last notes of a musical chime echoed, over the sound of romantic music.

"Alright, I'm coming! If you push that button one more time, doctor or not, I'm going to break your hand! This had better be important!" Sakaki's frustrated voice called out.

 _Why am I at Sakaki's house?_

The door was yanked open and the look of annoyed frustration on Sakaki's face immediately changed to one of alarm and concern. "Minamoto! What's wrong?" Sakaki's hand went immediately to his shoulder and the look of alarm changed to shock and then an empathic wince of pain, Sakaki obviously using his psychometry to instantly determine what had happened.

Minamoto had never before been quite so grateful for his unlikely best friend's power. He didn't think he was capable of coherent speech right now.

"Come inside," Sakaki ordered, ensuring he did so by yanking him inside and closing the door firmly behind him.

Minamoto kicked off his shoes by rote, and then his friend guided him to his living room.

There was a gasp of surprise from a beautiful woman in a scandalously short, skintight red dress, as she rose from the Western style loveseat, a glass of champagne in her hand. "Is everything alright?" she asked solicitously.

"Forgive me, Cali, but I'm afraid I have to cancel our plans for the evening. My friend needs me," he apologized, as he steered Minamoto to the loveseat and pushed him down onto it.

"Of course. I'll call you," she said, fortunately sympathetic instead of irate, as she easily could have been.

Sakaki escorted her to the door, and returned with gratifying speed. Minamoto blinked in confused surprise as Sakaki reached his hand into his jacket, until he pulled out his weapon, wincing as he held it, the strong emotions from the gun's imprint no doubt making Sakaki momentarily ill. Sakaki hated to hold guns, not only because he was a physician, but because of the tragic story most weapons told, the strong raw emotion, the fear and anger and anguish of every wielder of the weapon forever imprinted upon it. Sakaki opened a locked drawer, put the gun inside, and relocked it.

Minamoto's face flushed in humiliation, although he was certain just from touching him before, his friend would have known of his shameful, brief, irrational urge to shoot Hyoubu. He slumped over, clenching his hair painfully in both hands, the sharp sensation tearing through his scalp a welcome relief from his numbness, his elbows braced on his thighs.

Wordlessly, a few moments later, Sakai tugged on his wrist and then placed a cup of sake in his hand. Minamoto sat up and downed it without tasting it, and the tiny cup was immediately refilled. "I'll warm the next bottle," his friend promised.

Minamoto didn't care. He drank the second cup, not tasting it either. It was as if his entire world was muffled, somehow, the sound muted, light and colors dimmed, his body numb.

"I had no idea that tonight you were going to… I'm so sorry for your loss," Sakaki said sincerely.

His words sent a jolt of shock through Minamoto's numb mind. Sakaki had said the standard phrase used for when someone you love dies. The very though set his heart racing. But Kaoru wasn't dead. She was just… gone. Sakaki was right: lost.

"I know this won't help, that you'll probably want to punch me for saying it, but at least it's not as bad as it would have been, before. Don't get me wrong, I know it's still a personal tragedy, but at least I don't think the entire world is endangered by it, now. I don't quite understand how, but that newbie, the U.S.E.I. agent, Andy Hinomiya, truly changed Hyoubu. Even with Hinomiya's betrayal, or perhaps because of it, the aftermath, all that happened… at least I don't think you have to worry that Hyoubu will drag her down into the darkness with him."

"Hinomiya left them," Minamoto argued, shocked that his first words would be about him, instead of Kaoru. They'd continued to monitor P.A.N.D.R.A., after they thwarted the assassination attempt in the U.S., and Hinomiya as well, after he left the group. There was no way they'd let a psychic powerful enough to actually control Kyousuke Hyoubu's power slip off their radar. Hinomiya was still in the U.S., apparently on some sort of private quest, rather than a P.A.N.D.R.A. mission, from the locations he'd been tracked to, and the regular reports of the two agent psychic team sent to tail him.

"True. But they haven't committed a single terrorist act since that time, and it's been nearly two months. Maldrid was self defense, and they didn't take further action after the hotel. I can't think of any other time in all their long history that P.A.N.D.R.A. has been quiescent for so long," Sakaki asserted.

Minamoto nodded in mute agreement. No small part of that was likely thanks to Sakaki, for his rescuing Hyoubu and Magi, and treating their injuries, under B.A.B.E.L.'s orders. Still… "She deserves better than him."

"Yes, she does. She deserves you. But our heads and hearts don't always see eye to eye. That's why I've never again allowed my heart to get engaged with anyone," Sakaki claimed, flinching as the words left his mouth, obviously realizing how poor a choice of words "engaged" was, considering the circumstances, even as Minamoto wondered who Sakaki had loved and lost. He'd suspected there might have been a ghost in his friend's past, beneath and most likely the cause of the front of flirtatious indifference he showed the world, the endless string of meaningless shallow relationships and one night stands he indulged in.

Minamoto took the velvet box out of his pocket and opened it, staring at the pink diamond on the simple, platinum band. The stone had caught his eye immediately, the moment he'd seen it: it was the same shade as Kaoru's eyes, with the same fire and brilliance. But Kaoru had instead chosen a throne.

He set the open box on the coffee table, the diamond twinkling in the light, mocking him, and then poured himself a third cup of sake. "To Kyousuke Hyoubu and all the world's villains, for thwarting us at every turn. We may die withered, lonely old men, but at least we will always be employed," Minamoto toasted bitterly, and attempted to drink down the cup as quickly as the other two, but he coughed and sputtered, gasping, unable to swallow, choking on the drink, or on his own words.

Sakai raised his own cup. "To those we've loved and lost," he said quietly, drinking his cup down, a sadness in his eyes that pained Minamoto nearly as much as his own.

He nodded and drank to his friend's toast instead. At least he still had Sakaki.

0 0 0

Kaoru's stomach was full of butterflies. Minamoto was taking her to dinner in a fine restaurant and then dancing, and he'd sounded so serious, when he asked her. Aoi and Shiho would have been jealous of her, if they hadn't seen over the years how close the two of them had become, if they hadn't been happy for their friend.

She was heading for the window to watch the street for Minamoto's car again, even though she knew he was always punctual, that he'd arrive at any moment, when a figure literally appeared out of thin air in front of her. She gasped in surprise. "Kyousuke!" _What is he doing here?_

Kyousuke knelt before her, and kissed her hand. "You are making this very hard for me. You look particularly lovely this evening, Kaoru."

She failed to pull her had away, stunned by the use of her first name. He always called her "my Queen". And what was she making hard?

"As enchanting as you are, and special as you will always be, I acknowledge now that it was never your dream to be my Queen, to rule the world by my side, nor is it mine, any longer, that you do," Kyousuke claimed, to her astonishment, still holding her hand. "I have a different dream now, one that I share with another."

She wanted to ask what his new dream was, and who, but she found herself completely enthralled, unable to speak, when Kyousuke smiled up at her, not his usual bemused smirk, but a genuine smile of pure joy. She had never seen him so happy before, so at peace.

"As Andy Hinomiya put it so bluntly, we both refuse to accept the destiny a dead dolphin has painted for the world. Instead, we are going to forge our own, side by side. As partners, husbands," Kyousuke claimed, his face flushing endearingly with a blush that made him momentarily look all the more like the middle school boy he was dressed as.

As his words sank in and she saw the blush, joy filled her. She felt her eyes well with tears of happiness for him as she squealed in delight. She pulled Hyoubu to his feet, and then impulsively embraced him, and his arms wrapped around her waist. "I'm so happy!" Kaoru cried, feeling ready to burst with joy. This was what she had always wanted, always hoped for, to finally see Kyousuke happy, to see him lay the demons of his past to rest, to finally embrace his future, not one of destruction, but one of hope.

Even when she had merely thought the two men comrades, friends, she had been infuriated when Hinomiya had betrayed Kyousuke, knowing Kyousuke saw all his people as his family, and how sensitive he was to betrayal, with his past, how much more he would have been wounded by such a base betrayal than another would have been.

She was momentarily distracted from her thoughts by a sound outside. _Is that a car?_ She rushed to the window but frowned in disappointment when she didn't see one. She glanced down at her watch and was surprised to see it was two minutes after six. Minamoto was normally never late, even by a minute.

"I should go. You are obviously expecting someone. You truly look particularly lovely tonight, Kaoru. I assume you are seeing Minamoto?" Kyousuke asked. For a welcome change, he sounded curious, and even amused, rather than resentful or angry.

"Yes. He's a good man, brave and honorable. He reminds me a lot of you," she risked saying. "The only reason you don't like him is because you've always seen him as a rival, and because he's a Normal. If you weren't so prejudiced against him, I truly believe you could be good friends. You are so much alike," she blurted, unable to stop herself. But now she was concerned she might have said too much. She didn't want to spoil the moment of peace or Kyousuke's happiness.

She was shocked to see a second, tender smile grace his face. "Andy said much the same to me. It took me a while to admit that he was right, as are you. Minamoto has helped us, upon more than one occasion, and not only when my sister ordered him to. I would like to have him as a friend, instead of an enemy. But as I hope for that, I should go. It wouldn't do for him to see me here with you. It would only add fuel to the fire I hope to bank."

She nodded. "He should be here any moment. But thank you so much for coming, Kyousuke. We'll speak again longer, soon, I promise."

"Until we meet again," he promised and vanished.

Kaoru couldn't help humming to herself happily, as she tidied the already neat room, puttering impatiently, forcing herself to not look at her watch again. When she finally couldn't resist the urge, she frowned. It was 6:14.

"What can be keeping him? Why hasn't he called to tell me he'll be late?" Not that she wanted him talking on his phone while driving, it was dangerous, but he could pull over to do it. She called his cell phone, but to her surprise, the call went directly to voicemail. No doubt set that way for the drive.

"Minamoto-kun, I'm just calling to see where you are, but I suppose you're on your way. Please call me and let me know if you'll be delayed much longer." She began pacing the room, nervous energy making it impossible to stay still.

She fidgeted and puttered for another fifteen minutes, until she was ready to pull her hair out or scream in frustration and worry. She'd called him over a dozen more times. In desperation she'd even called Sakaki, just in case the two were together for some reason, or he might know what was delaying Minamoto, but she had gotten his voicemail as well.

She turned on the TV with a sinking feeling. Had Kyousuke been lying? Had his visit been a smokescreen, a precursor to a P.A.N.D.R.A. attack? She flipped through the channels, scanning every news channel she saw for signs of chaos, but found nothing about terrorist acts.

She turned to the local channel. A reporter was standing outside the front of a large building, with a huge crowd and a number of policemen, fire trucks and an ambulance visible.

"Witnesses say the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed at full speed into the store. He was pronounced dead at the scene. There is unconfirmed evidence indicating he might have been intoxicated at the time of the crash. Ten other people were injured, those on the sidewalk and inside the store, three of them critically." She was impatiently awaiting the next news story, when the camera pulled back from the building, and focused on the back of the car and she froze in shocked horror, seeing the all too familiar license plate number captured onscreen.

"No. No, it can't be. He's always so careful when he drives, we're always telling him to go faster, because… Drinking. No, he wouldn't be. Sakaki, maybe, but never Minamoto. He… it can't be. They said the driver was…" She watched in horrified fascination as the camera accidentally panned over and then quickly panned away from a gurney with a sheet draped body, in respect for the dead man. Dead. Minamoto wasn't late because of P.A.N.D.R.A. He was late because… He wasn't ever… "No. NO. **NO!** "

Hands shaking, she pressed the speed dial button for Aoi.

"Kaoru! I…" her friend began

"I need you to bring Shiho, to come to my house, now!" Kaoru screamed into the phone hysterically.

"Kaoru, what's…"

She fell to her knees, sobbing. "Now! Please come now!"

A moment later she was staring at her friend, standing concerned over her.

"Shiho! Where's Shiho!" she begged.

Aoi knelt and hugged her. "I came here first. We can go to her, but I had to see what's wrong. Tell me what happened. Did someone attack you?" She scanned both her and her neat home for signs of damage, a struggle.

"Mi… na… mo… to," she choked out, amidst sobs, pointing to the TV screen.

Eyes widening, Aoi studied the screen. "Hold on," she said, grabbing her friend.

Instead of teleporting to Shiho, they appeared at the scene of the accident. There was an exclamation of surprise and shock from the emergency workers and police.

Kaoru shook her head frantically. She couldn't be here, she couldn't.

"If he's here, hurt, then…" she broke off as Kaoru shook her head frantically, her eyes widening in belated understanding.

"Where did you girls come from?" a voice called.

"Who are you?" a second demanded.

"Stay where you are, hands in the air!" a police officer ordered.

It was seldom a good thing to see psychics at the scene of a tragedy. Almost always, they were the cause.

"Do you have your ID? I don't," Aoi said ruefully.

Kaoru shook her head. It had been in her purse.

Aoi snatched her wrist and they vanished, reappearing in Shiho's house.

Shiho squeaked and gaped at them. "I just turned on the news and saw you on TV! Were you in the store?" Shiho asked in concern.

"It's Minamoto's car. We need to know if he was driving it," Aoi said calmly. "Do you still have his old ID card, the one you stole years ago for his picture, and so you could stalk him?"

Shiho's eyes widened and she nodded. Then she headed for her bedroom.

"Wait. You need to know, before you touch it: the driver isn't alive," Aoi cautioned.

Shiho froze and then turned, a look of horror and disbelief on her face, as her gaze flew to Kaoru. Then she headed resolutely for her room.

"I need to be with her," Aoi claimed, heading after her.

Kaoru nodded, trying to force the horrific images of the crash in her imagination from her head. She couldn't let her friends do this alone, not when they loved him too. "Wait!" she cried and then headed for the room. "Forgive me, Shiho, for asking you to do this."

"It's fine," Shiho said, unusually subdued. She took the ID card out of the bottom of her jewelry box and concentrated on it, and then swayed and stumbled.

Kaoru heard herself cry out in denial, as Aoi caught hold of Shiho _. It's true. He's dead, Minamoto is…_

"Drunk! He's drunk! How dare he scare us like that, when he's with Sakaki, at his house drinking!" Shiho yelled in indignant fury, shaking her head to clear it from the effects not of death agony, but of alcohol.

"What?" Kaoru stared at her friend in confusion, unable to believe what she'd heard. _He isn't dead? He stood me up? To drink with Sakaki?_ _Had he needed a doctor?_ The thought made her heart hammer all over again. "Is he hurt?" she asked, grasping at straws to understand.

"No, but he's going to be!" Shiho fumed.

Aoi's eyes narrowed, and she grabbed her friends' wrists, and in the next moment, they were all in Sakaki's house, in his living room. And there was Minamoto, alive and well, his jacket and tie tossed carelessly on the floor, his shirt untucked and the top buttons undone, his arm wrapped around Sakaki's shoulders. Sakaki was dressed in a similar state of dishabille.

The two men jumped apart, startled by the sudden appearance of the three angry girls in the room. If Kaoru didn't know them both so well, she'd have thought they'd been making out with one another.

"What are you…?" Sakaki tried to ask, but Kaoru pushed past him and slapped Minamoto in the face, an open handed slap that cracked loudly, instead of using her power to slam him against the wall the way she used to when she was younger.

"You need to hit him a lot harder than that," Aoi claimed.

"Let me take a crack at him," Shiho threatened.

Minamoto stared at her in shock, as if she was the one behaving irrationally.

"You never came! I thought you were _dead_! And you're here _drinking_?" Kaoru shouted her disbelief, her power sending both the empty and half full sake bottles on the coffee table in front of them flying towards his head, of its own accord.

Minamoto blocked the first with his arm, and Sakaki struck and deflected the second one.

"Why would you think…?" Minamoto began, his voice shocked and confused.

"Your car drove into a department store! The driver is dead! Ten people are in the hospital, and you're here drinking! You didn't come or call and I called and called, both of you, so many times and...

Her power flared in a whirlwind around her, and sake cups, champagne glasses, lamps and other objects went flying, all pelting Minamoto. He held up his arms to protect his face, grunting when things hit his chest and arms.

"That's enough!" Sakaki demanded, attempting to protect his friend, his command losing any effectiveness it might have had as his words slurred and he swayed on his feet, even as he interposed himself between them, to protect Minamoto.

"As if you even care where I am, anymore! Where's Hyoubu? Off blowing something up?" Minamoto accused irrationally.

"What are you talking about? We haven't seen Hyoubu in two weeks!" Shiho defended.

Minamoto shook his head, unbalancing himself by it and almost falling over in the process, and then he reached down to the coffee table and picked something up. He glared at Kaoru, pain and anger in his eyes. "He was there. In your living room, with you, kissing your hand and proposing to you. You said yes and you hugged him. I saw everything," he accused, and then he threw the thing in his hand at her.

Shiho snatched it out of the air and then gasped, falling to her knees. Kaoru bent over her friend in concern, but to her shock Shiho glared up at her. "Kaoru, how could you! How could you do that to Minamoto!" she accused, leaping to her feet. "Aoi and I would give anything for him to love us the way he loves you!"

"I didn't do anything!" Kaoru denied defensively, even as guilt washed over her. Minamoto had been there? He'd seen them together? And he'd thought Kyousuke had _proposed_ to her? But why would he think…?

"Here! Add it to your collection!" Shiho snapped, thrusting the object at her.

Kaoru's eyes widened in shock and disbelief as she stared at the velvet box, the glittering ring inside. _That looks like… is that… an_ _ **engagement**_ _ring?_ "But it wasn't like that! I didn't know Kyousuke was going to visit me!" Kaoru argued, suddenly the focus of four angry glares instead of two.

"Minamoto was going to propose to you, and instead, you said yes to Hyoubu? You're leaving us for him, betraying us?" Aoi, always the calm voice of reason accused.

"I… no! Of course not! I… I didn't know Minamoto was there…" Kaoru stuttered, realizing how damning sounding the words were the moment she uttered them. "I mean, it wasn't like that. Kyousuke's not marrying me! He's marrying Andy Hinomiya!" she yelled.

The disbelief and disdain in the room was as smothering as if she'd been an empath.

"No, I mean it, I swear! Yes, Kyousuke was in my house, but I didn't know he was coming. He knelt down to me, and kissed my hand, the way he always does, but it was to tell me he wasn't going to pursue me anymore, that he didn't want a Queen anymore, he wanted Hinomiya. He said they refused to believe the vision of that future with me, that they were going to make their own future, their own dream, that they were going to be partners, husbands, and he _smiled_ , he was so happy, and I was happy for him, and…" She burst into tears. She hadn't done anything wrong, and neither had Kyousuke, but now everything was completely messed up. Minamoto had been planning to _propose_ to her, and now he _hated_ her and…

She ran for the door, half blinded by tears, unable to bear the weight of their anger anymore.

When the arms closed around her from behind she struggled. "Let me go! He hates me! Let me go!" she sobbed.

"I don't hate you. I hate myself. I'm such a fool. I'm sorry, Kaoru," Minamoto said softly in her ear, and she belatedly realized the arms were his.

She stopped struggling and turned around in his arms and clung to him, crying, in both grief and relief, her emotions a tangled mess. She'd been so happy, and then she'd thought he was dead, and then she'd hated him and he'd hated her, but she loved him, and he still loved her, and…

"You need to talk. We're going. Come on Sakaki," Aoi said.

"What? But it's my hou-" Sakaki's protest was silenced mid word.

She peeked out from Minamoto's arms and saw the three of them were gone. Aoi had teleported them elsewhere.

"I'm sorry I was such an idiot. I'm sorry I made you cry," Minamoto apologized again, still holding her.

She inhaled deeply, his familiar scent soothing her, the warm strength of his arms and powerful sound of his heartbeat calming her. "You thought I betrayed B.A.B.E.L."

He stiffened, and she quickly corrected herself.

"No, you thought I betrayed you. That I promised myself to him, instead of you. That I broke your heart. That's why you came here, and were drinking, and didn't call. You thought you'd lost me. Idiot. How many times do I have to tell you, that's not my future? You're my future, Koichi." His given name felt odd on her tongue, odd but right.

He exhaled heavily, as his tense shoulders relaxed, as if he was expelling the weight of the world with that single breath. Then he let her go and held up the box, pulling the ring from it. Shiho must have pressed it into his hand just before they left. "This isn't at all the way I pictured it, but I should have known better than to try to do it the conventional way. You've never done anything I've expected. That's a large part of why I love you. I love your unpredictability, your independence and your strength, your strong but unconventional morality. I love everything about you, Kaoru, and if you feel at least somewhat the same about me, enough to put up with my job, and my friend Sakaki, and all the other insanity in both our lives, would you please marry me? Not right away, but once you graduate high school, once you're eighteen," he qualified, smiling ruefully in self derision at the addendum.

"Yes, Koichi, of course I'll marry you, you idiot," she said tenderly. He slipped the ring onto her finger, and then she kissed him.

He stiffened, and then relaxed again, his arms wrapping about her waist, as he responded to the kiss, deepening it. The unreality of the moment, yet rightness, left her breathless. When they finally ended the kiss, Kaoru nuzzled contentedly against his chest, still in his arms.

"Kaoru? What was that about my car before, about an accident? My car's parked outside."

She shook her head. "It was on the news. We saw it. It crashed into a building. The driver… he's dead, and they think he'd been drinking. I couldn't believe it was you, you seldom drink, and never when driving and… but it's your car."

He pulled away, and she let him go. He looked out the window and cursed, softly, feeling his pocket. His shoulders slumped. "My keys are gone. I couldn't even remember driving here, I was just ringing the doorbell. I must have left them in the ignition. And now someone's dead." His eyes widened. "You said there were others, ten people in the hospital."

The guilt in his eyes was painful to see.

She immediately went to him, and embraced him again. "That's not your fault. That man chose to steal your car, and if he was drinking, he chose to drink and drive."

Minamoto shook his head. "There's no telling why he was drinking. Someone he loved might have died or left him or he might have lost his job and been unable to support his family. He was drunk, so his faculties were impaired. I gave him the opportunity to harm himself and others. I'm to blame as well. I need to report in, and to go to the hospital, to check on the status of the injured civilians."

"Of course you do. That's who you are. But I'm coming with you. We'll face this together," she insisted.

"You'll need shoes. You should change, too. We'll catch a cab, to your house, I'll call from there, and then we'll proceed to the hospital. I'll have Sakaki meet us there, so he can speak to the doctors."

"I'll call Aoi and Shiho," she agreed, as he called for the cab.

This was familiar. This felt right. This was her Minamoto. Her Koichi.


	8. Chapter 8 - Muddy Footprints

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

A/N: I usually only post chapters of this story on Sundays, but I posted Chapter 7 – Toasting the Enemy on Wednesday, to thank my first reviewer on Fanfiction-net, TheImmortalLegendaryPhoenix, for reviewing this story, so if you haven't read that chapter, be sure to read it first!

Chapter 8 – Muddy Footprints

Hyoubu sighed in relief, setting Kaoru's bracelet down. When Magi had told him about the broadcast, shown him the brief flash of Kaoru shoeless and hysterical, beside her friend Nogami, at the scene of an accident, he'd thought her other friend, Sannomiya, was injured or dead, until they'd shown the close-up of the back of the car, the all too familiar license plate, and he'd realized it was Minamoto. But she'd disappeared again, so he'd gone to his room, to get the bracelet, so he could locate her, and go to her, to console her.

But it had been a false alarm, a misunderstanding. Kaoru was fine, Minamoto as well, and her friends. There was anxiety and guilt, there had been harsh words and anger and grief, but nothing they all would not recover from, had not already almost entirely overcome. His lips lifted in a small smile. And Minamoto had proposed to her, and she'd said yes.

He called the bridge and informed Magi that all was well, explaining briefly. He slipped the bracelet into his pocket, feeling foolish for not putting it away, but needing the comfort of it, like Yugiri with Andy's watch. Then he headed to Yugiri's room. He knocked softly and then entered, without waiting for permission. Yugiri was sitting up in the bed, clutching her teddy bear anxiously, and Yoh was sitting at her side, a storybook in his hands.

"Major?" she asked, her voice full of concern and uncertainty.

"It's alright. I'll be able to read to you after all, Yugiri. Our friends in B.A.B.E.L. are all fine. There was an accident, but none of them were involved. Thank you Yoh, but I'll take it from here," Hyoubu stated, holding his hand out for the book.

Yoh studied his face, obviously surprised and worried by his uncustomary thanks, concerned he might be keeping something from Yugiri, before smirking and handing him the book. "Still third choice," he complained, but without rancor. Yoh seemed as relieved as he was that all was well with B.A.B.E.L. "If that jerk Minamoto was gone, there's no telling who they'd get to replace him," Yoh grumbled, apparently realizing he'd let his concern show.

Once the door closed, Hyoubu settled in the chair vacated by Yoh.

"They're really alright?" Yugiri asked uncertainly.

"They're fine. I promise. Now lie back, Yugiri. It's time for bed," he assured her.

With a relieved, contented sigh, she lay back, still holding the bear, but not clutching it so tightly.

Hyoubu smiled down at her and began reading.

0 0 0

Yugiri bolted awake to the faint glow of her nightlight in her otherwise dark room, heart pounding in terror. "Andy!" She hoped it was a nightmare, but she knew it wasn't, as she curled into a tight ball and clutched the watch around her wrist to her chest, crushing her bear against her in the process, actively using her power on his watch, knowing it shouldn't work, that his power should negate hers.

But there it was again, just like in her dream: Andy, in the pouring rain, surrounded by armed men, fighting. Without thinking she teleported to him. Soldiers, they were soldiers, so many, all around her, and Andy, being knocked to the ground, a knee pressing into his back and another into his head, grinding his face into the mud, as one of his hands was cuffed.

"Don't hurt him! Let him go!" she screamed, her power lashing out wildly, the world around them distorting into horrific nightmare images of monstrous creatures. The soldiers began attacking one another in panic as she ran to Andy's side.

Andy levered himself up from the ground, the special psychic dampening handcuffs dangling from his left wrist, and she saw in surprise he was wearing a watch, just like hers, the one he had given her, as he wiped the mud from his eyes and then squinted through the rain, his eyes widening in horror when he saw her. "Yugiri! Get out of here! They have ECMs! Run, teleport, go!"

Even as he called out the warning, a voice yelled, "Maximum output!" and an ear-piercing, whistling sound screeched through the air. She dropped her bear, and slammed her hands over her ears, as she tried to drown out the horrible, all too familiar sound.

"Stop it! You're hurting her!" Andy roared, leaping to his feet, running towards the nearest soldier, who was standing dazed, after having moments ago been shooting wildly at everything around him. She saw Andy rip the gun from his arms and club him in the head with the rifle butt and then he began firing at the truck mounted ECM. Yugiri saw to her relief he finally destroyed it, but as her power flared wildly, drowning the soldiers again in terror, she was horrified when the men nearest Andy attacked him. Half a dozen went down under a flurry of Andy's blows, but the rest smashed into him like a tidal wave, overwhelming him, pounding him into the ground, relentlessly. They were killing him!

She instantly stopped her power, heading for Andy at a stumbling run. He was bleeding! He wasn't moving! Her eyes widened in terror as half a dozen guns lifted, pointing at her, as the wild-eyed soldiers aimed at her, and fired. She screamed and teleported a moment too late as the first bullet hit, the bridge of the Catastrophe firmly implanted in her mind, even as pain drowned her.

0 0 0

Hyoubu awoke with the vague but certain knowledge that something was horribly wrong. He teleported to the bridge instantly. "What's happening?" he demanded, as Magi looked at him, startled.

"What do you mean? There's nothing. We're in no danger," Magi claimed.

His eyes widened. "Kaoru!" He'd been thinking about her a lot tonight. He must have subconsciously sensed something.

But at that moment, Yugiri appeared in front of them on the bridge, screaming. She was in her nightgown, but both it and her hair were soaking wet, as if she'd come from the ocean or the pool. She staggered forward two steps, but before he could reach her, she collapsed, and lay ominously silent and still.

Hyoubu ran to her, and to his horror, saw blood gushing from her tiny shoulder. Hand shaking, he pressed it to her, trying to staunch the flow as he determined the damage, the cause, his eyes burning in fury, as he traced the path of a bullet with his mind. "She's been shot! We're under attack! Sound the alarm! Protect the other children!" he ordered. No wonder she was drenched! She must have botched her first teleport attempt, because of the pain, the damage.

Magi slammed on the alarm, mobilizing the sleeping ship against the danger, as Hyoubu forced his hand to steady, and he began meticulously repairing the damage along the bullet's path with his power, pulling together torn flesh and blood vessels, and shattered bone. The bullet had blasted straight through her tiny body, leaving a gaping hole of splintered bone where her shoulder blade had been.

He tuned out the alarm, the angry shouts, focusing on saving Yugiri. Magi would interrupt him, if the situation were dire enough to warrant it, if the ship was in danger of sinking again. He was almost more concerned when he wasn't interrupted, finally momentarily focusing on the outside world again, afraid his entire crew had been defeated or captured. He was both relieved and disturbed to see Magi, Yoh, Momiji and Momotaro all beside him. Was the bridge the final bastion on the ship? But they weren't positioned defensively.

"Status report," he demanded, his hands still pressed to Yugiri, pausing mid-repair.

"We can't find any sign of an attack. There are no ships, planes or submarines, no divers or teleporters. Nothing," Magi reported. "Could she have had a nightmare and injured herself?"

He glared at Magi. "I told you, she was shot. She didn't shoot herself. She…" His eyes went to the muddy footprints on the deck. To her muddy feet and the filthy edge of her nightgown. "Mud. No scent of chlorine or seawater. Rain. She was in the rain, or a lake, or stream, on land, somewhere outside, in the dirt. The mud. Damn it! She teleported somewhere. Why? Don't tell me she did it unconsciously? During a nightmare? Remain alert and get me a first aid kit. I still need to bandage this, immobilize her arm, after I finish." He tuned out the rest of them, focusing on her wound again.

When he was finally done, he lifted his hand away. He had realigned and rebuilt all he could, using his power to fuse together splintered bone and selectively cauterizing to control the bleeding, temporarily diverting the nerve impulses to subdue the pain. She still needed time to heal. She'd still scar, though not horribly. She'd need therapy to regain the full use of her arm. He wrapped and then taped her arm to her side and administered a painkiller. She looked small and pale and fragile, and he wanted to smash something, to destroy someone for this, the urge to kill, to seek revenge, the bloodlust coursing through him.

Then her eyes fluttered open, and the anger began to dissipate. "Major?"

"It's alright. You're safe now. You're home," he assured her.

"Home? Where… Andy! Where is he? Did you save him?" Yugiri begged, trying to sit, crying out in pain.

Hyoubu felt the blood drain from his face. "Andy? Where was he? What happened?" he demanded.

"S…soldiers! H…he tried to protect me. They hurt him!" she began sobbing wildly and then cried out in pain.

He laid his hand on her head, closed his eyes and channeled his power. She immediately fell asleep. With incredible care and gentleness he used his power to view her memories. He had to find Andy. How had she known, and gone to him? She shouldn't have been able to use the watch. Unless they had ECMs that blocked his power.

They did. She'd woken in a panic, and used her power on the watch, and gone to him, without thinking, while the ECM was directed towards him, and nearly died because of it. He saw Andy fight to protect her, saw him fall under a brutal rain of blows after destroying the ECM, which allowed her to escape.

He opened his eyes.

"What's happened to Hinomiya? Where is he?" Yoh demanded.

Hyoubu ignored him, as he unstrapped the watch from Yugiri's arm and clung to it, trying to use it to find Hinomiya, as a focus, to determine the exact coordinates of the attack, and then he teleported.

Comerica, he was in Comerica. It was daylight here, or what should have been daylight, but there was a driving rain. Mud, mud everywhere. A dirt road. No tire tracks. No shell casings. Nothing. No sign they had ever been here. He searched, first methodically and then frantically, not even certain he was in the right spot. The watch that should have led him to Andy led him here, to where only vestigial traces of his presence remained. ECMs, or other signal blockers. Wherever Andy was, they were blocking him from his power. Andy was hurt, possibly gravely injured, dying, and they were keeping him from him. If he was still alive.

The hazy flashes of image he got from his psychometry, muffled by the earlier presence of the ECM, were terrifying: Andy against an army, finally subdued, Yugiri's arrival sparking more chaos, Andy fighting anew, trying to protect Yugiri, his overwhelming terror for her, the brutality of the soldiers beating Andy mercilessly in revenge for all the damage he'd done to their comrades, even as a bullet tore through Yugiri, others just missing her.

Rage and grief flooded Hyoubu, deeper than anything he'd felt in decades, since the war, when he'd lost all his comrades. Even Andy's betrayal and the battle before the sinking of the Catastrophe couldn't compare to this, until the aftermath, when he realized they'd taken Yugiri. _If they've killed Andy…_

His power burned wildly, like a roaring fire dragon, seeking to incinerate everything in its path, but without a target, straining against the cage of Andy's control, threatening to consume him if it wasn't freed. Suddenly with an audible crack it released, unleashing the full potential of his power, sending it racing in every direction away from him, seeking, searching everywhere.

Nothing. Gone. Andy was gone, lost to him, somewhere here in Comerica.

 _How can my power be free again? Andy promised me only when our future… Unless he's dead? Is my power free because…? No! It must be ECMs. He's not… He can't…_

Hyoubu's power was flaring wildly. He no longer wore a limiter to control it; there hadn't been a need to forge a new one. It was going to devour him, eat him alive, even without Yugiri forcing it to overload, like before, in New York.

In mindless desperation his hand slipped into his pocket, and touched the cool metal bracelet inside. Relief flooded him in the form of Kaoru's reassuring warmth and without conscious thought, no longer even capable of rational thought, he went to her.

0 0 0

Minamoto drank the last of the tea Kaoru had brought for him gratefully. They were at headquarters now. Time, the tea and aspirin had helped clear his head from the sake, settle his stomach and control his headache, and speaking to both Sakaki and Tsubomi had eased his guilt over the injured civilians and the deceased driver. The man had a history of drunk driving, his license had been revoked and he'd been jailed for it. He'd stolen cars before, without needing the keys, he'd been jailed for it, but he'd stolen from friends, and the charges had been dropped.

They'd left the hospital sometime between 1 AM and 2 AM, he wasn't even certain when, and he'd been in the base since then. It was 3:06 AM, now, he realized as he checked his watch with an exhausted yawn. He'd had quite enough excitement for one night. He was finally ready to return to his home, to go to bed.

Kaoru had said yes. He'd botched the night completely, scared her, gotten drunk instead of taking her to dinner and dancing, and she'd said yes anyway. She'd understood. _Thank God._

"I think it's about time we both went home to… Kyousuke!" Kaoru gasped, dropping the teapot she had just lifted to refill his cup. It fell to the floor and exploded in a wave of hot tea, splashing them both.

"What is it? What's wrong? What's happened to him?" Minamoto asked, his concern genuine. He'd always liked Hyoubu, or wanted to. Tsubomi had told him so much about him, and he'd seen so much more over the years. He was such an honorable, tortured, tormented soul, that in spite of the many truly heinous things he'd done, it was impossible to truly hate him.

"I don't know. He's angry and hurt and… I haven't felt anything like this, since the night… since the night the _Catastrophe_ was attacked and sunk!" Without another word, the two of them ran for the monitoring room.

"Is the _Catastrophe_ on your monitors? Is something wrong with the ship?" Kaoru demanded.

"They're in international waters, off our shore, but not cloaked. Our satellite showed there was a flurry of activity aboard a little while ago, almost as if they were under attack, but there was no sign of anything. We reported it to Director Tsubomi, and she instructed us to continue to monitor and notify her immediately if the situation changed, but it calmed down a little while ago. We haven't…"

Tsubomi flew into the room at a run. "What's happened to Kyousuke? Are they under attack?" she demanded.

"You felt it too," Kaoru exclaimed, in both relief and concern.

Without warning the lights extinguished, even as the emergency claxon flared, as the room was bathed in coruscating fuchsia and blue light."Intruder Alert! Hostile Level 7 ESPer detected in the Monitoring Room!" the mechanized alert declared unnecessarily, as Kyousuke hovered glowing before them, soaking wet, head turning wildly, scanning the room. His eyes fell upon Kaoru and he lunged for her.

Minamoto instinctively dove in front of her, and was flung aside with sickening force and terrifying speed, heading for the far wall. He tried to curl, to protect his head, but unexpectedly slammed into something much softer that protected him. "Koichi!"

Kaoru, it was Kaoru, but then she was gone, catching two of the technicians. There was an inhuman roar of frustration and rage as Kyousuke teleported in front of her, when she darted out of his reach.

"Kyousuke, stop! What's wrong?" Director Tsubomi demanded teleporting to block him, reaching for him, but he evaded her.

"Whatever control Hinomiya had over his power is gone, his power is running wild again, but something else is wrong too," Kaoru cried. "Stay back everyone! He keeps trying to go to me. I'm going to let him catch me!"

"Kaoru, no!" Minamoto yelled, running for her, but Kyousuke reached her first. He dove into her, tackling her, and the two of them vanished midair and didn't reappear.

"Where is she? Track her!" Minamoto demanded. The technicians scrambled back to their seats, searching for the signal from her limiter bracelet. It was a futile hope. Kyousuke knew about her bracelet, the tracking device inside. The first thing he'd do was destroy it and…

"They're on the _Queen of Catastrophe_! The ship hasn't cloaked yet," one of the technicians yelled triumphantly.

"It's a trick. There's no way he'd go there, and not destroy the tracker," Minamoto denied in frustration.

"He didn't look rational at all. I think they might truly be there," Director Tsubomi argued, grabbing him by the wrist. "Come on!" But instead of teleporting to the ship, they teleported to a bedroom he recognized as hers, from the one other time she'd taken him there.

"What…?" he asked in confusion, but she ignored him, ripping a picture off the wall and then literally tearing open what appeared to be a hidden safe, shredding the metal, instead of wasting the time to dial the combination, snatching something from inside and then grabbing him again.

A moment later, Minamoto found himself on the bridge of the _Catastrophe_ , in the middle of a scene of chaos. There were fallen crewmembers everywhere, moaning, scattered about the bridge. So they had been attacked!

Miraculously, there was Kaoru, Kyousuke beside her, looking wild-eyed and irrational, like a cornered animal, or a madman. Minamoto headed for them, but tentacle like ropes of hair wrapped around both him and Tsubomi and yanked them back.

"Stay back. He won't even recognize you. I tried to protect Yoh from him, and he broke my arm. Queen's trying to calm him," Magi commanded, as if they were part of the crew.

Even as he spoke, Tsubomi escaped his hair and ran to the pair. She looped something over Hyoubu's head, and miraculously, his flaring power dissipated.

"A limiter? That's what you were getting!" Minamoto stated in sudden understanding and relief as he saw the wild look dissolve away, and recognition and awareness flash in its place, in Hyoubu's anguished eyes.

"Queen? Kaoru. I can't find him. They took him. They took Andy. They shot Yugiri and took Andy and hurt him…" He fell against her like a marionette with his strings cut, clearly physically spent and apparently mentally and emotionally wrecked from both what he'd witnessed and the wild use of his power.

Kaoru wrapped her arms around him, catching him, sinking to her knees with his weight as his knees gave out. "Someone shot Yugiri and took Andy? It's alright, Kyousuke. We'll help you find him. Yugiri… is she here? Is she… does she need a doctor?"

"He treated her, while we searched the ship for attackers, before we realized she'd teleported off it. I don't know where she went, where she was when she was shot," Magi said, letting them go, wrapping his broken arm in bandages and a sling, both crafted from his own hair.

Minamoto suspected he could heal the break, but that he might need someone to set it for him first.

"Comerica. I followed Yugiri's trail there. But they were gone. Why… why are you here?" Hyoubu asked, sounding dazed.

"You kidnapped me. You attacked our base and took me here," Kaoru explained gently.

Hyoubu's eyes widened, and he looked around him, seeing the chaos. "Did I do this?" he asked, horrified.

"Don't worry about us. We're fine, Old Man," Yoh claimed, as he uncurled from the floor and released Momotaro, whom he'd apparently been shielding with his body, even as he scanned the little flying squirrel in concern, and then ran an assessing gaze over Magi as well, frowning at his arm.

"We'll chalk it up to temporary insanity, this time," Minamoto agreed. He'd never seen Hyoubu look so broken, so lost before. He'd feared him, seeing him completely out of control, but he hated seeing him like this. He knew how much fear had flooded him, when Hyoubu had whisked away Kaoru like that, and he'd thought he might never see her again. He could only imagine how much worse it was for Hyoubu, after what he'd described happened to Hinomiya.

"We actually have agents following Hinomiya. Not to harm him," Tsubomi added quickly. "Just… we need to keep an eye on him. They should have reported in after something like this. Hell, they should have tried to prevent it. I'm afraid the latter might be the case, and they might be dead. But they have trackers imbedded in their wrists. If they captured them instead, they're probably where Hinomiya is.

"If you'll give us a moment to call our base and assure them the three of us are fine, before they send additional trouble, we'll have them track our people while we sit with you, debrief you on everything that happened, and help strategize the best way to find Hinomiya, and bring him safely home to you," Tsubomi said.

Hyoubu stared at his sister and then nodded, appearing openly relieved that B.A.B.E.L would be working with them once again, instead of against him.


	9. Chapter 9 - Act of War

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 9 – Act of War

"Do you have the proclamation?" Princess Sophie Grace asked Najla Hassan, her new Minister of Psychic Affairs.

The bright eyed young woman who rose from the Council table was aptly named. Najla had modestly admitted that her given name meant "pretty eyes" in her native Arabic. Her sculpted cheekbones and flawless olive skin were beautiful, but her unique and exquisite eyes, which shone like black opals, were truly breathtaking. A fine-boned hand, which belied the strength of the woman before her, held the gilded letters patent out to her, a warm smile gracing a face that had until recently known only pain."Yes, Your Highness."

Sophie felt her heart quicken as she took the ornate document from her hand, boldly and devilishly allowing her fingers to brush against Najla's. Najla's fascinating eyes widened and her breath hitched, easily sensing the touch was intentional. So few people deliberately touched ESPers, out of suspicion, fear, or abject, unreasoning hatred.

Sophie willfully fought back a frown of dismay. Not today. Today was a day to be celebrated. One ESPer, at least, who had been seriously maligned, was about to receive the most precious gift it was in her power to bestow: the gift of a home. Quite literally, in fact.

She read the Declaration of Knighthood, the document conferring rank, title, estate and lands to the young man who richly deserved the gift. "For his act of conspicuous, selfless bravery and injury received protecting the life of the ruler of the Kingdom of Monarch, we do hereby grant citizenship and bestow the rank and title of Knight of the Realm, and Baron of Ashford, and the estate and lands thereby entitled, to Andrew Michael Hinomiya."

As she spoke the solemn words she remembered the sharp flash of terror, the gun raised by one of her trusted councilors, Hinomiya leaping protectively in front of her, the roar of the gunshot and the bright splatter of blood, the black, blue and pink swirling firestorm of righteous fury and terror from the brave and tiny girl Yugiri, immediately followed by the unexpected fatherly protective warmth of Kyousuke Hyoubu, as he prevented Yugiri from committing violence in protection of her, and of Hinomiya. As if it were yesterday and not months ago, she remembered seeing the clear adoration and relief in the precious little girl's eyes.

Once she had learned more about the child and P.A.N.D.R.A. from B.A.B.E.L., she had insisted the United Nations of the World form a task force to fully investigate the circumstances of the girl's birth, and was an active participant on the fact finding missions, in spite of U.S. protests. She and her fellow investigators had been horrified at the evidence they found in the abandoned U.S. research laboratory, particularly when it became clear that a number of the researchers were not only free and actively committing other similar atrocities of ESPer gestation, for the purposes of creating an enslaved Army, but that factions of the Comerican government were unofficially sanctioning and in fact funding the work.

Hinomiya was not the only one to be receiving a title and lands. Yugiri was receiving the neighboring barony. Sophie held out her hand for the second document, her thoughts flooded with memories of the adorable child.

Her fingertips once again brushing Najila's, this time seeking warmth and reassurance. The reaction was quite the opposite, as Najila gasped and paled alarmingly, her suddenly nerveless hand dropping the document.

"Najila, what's wrong?" Sophie demanded, but as Najila stiffened, she knew.

"She's having a vision. Be ready to take down every word!" she commanded, and her councilors and Ministers hastily snatched up pens and poised over laptops.

But Sophie quickly realized this was not like the other times, as Najila collapsed gasping to the floor, Sophie thankfully catching her before her head hit the ground, lowering her gently, as her body was wracked with spasms and grew rigid as if she were in agony, her magnificent eyes, her gift, her curse, unfocused, seeing something no one else could see, as she clearly struggled to breathe.

"Stop! Please stop! Enough! Come back!" Sophie begged, clutching her shoulders and shaking her, and then in shear panic embracing her, feeling every tendon and muscle stretched taut and rigid. And then Najila fell limp, and seemingly lifeless to the floor.

Sophie was terrified that she'd died. But then she felt Najila draw breath after shaky breath, as her arms wrapped convulsively around Sophie, and Najila hugged her tightly, letting out a single sob.

"F…Forgive me, Highness. I… she… I fear for the little girl, Yugiri. I saw her so clearly, in your thoughts, and then... Forgive me for hurting you, but… I fear she is dead," she whispered, a wealth of anguish and grief, of despair, not for the girl she did not even know, but for Sophie, because she did.

"Forgive me, _ashalutha_ , but what did you see?" she asked, stroking the suddenly sweaty hair from Najila's face, her own face flushing from publically speaking the archaic endearment, 'beloved one', but she doubted anyone would fault her for the public lapse. None of these Councilors were enemies. All were trusted, beyond reproach.

"Terror. Cold and Rain. Screeching. Soldiers. The uniforms: Comerican military. Fighting and blood. Gunfire. Pain, terror." Najila's eyes widened in dawning clarity. "Hinomiya! It was him, he was the one the soldiers were attacking, at first. Then Yugiri… he was trying to protect Yugiri. He tore an ECM apart, with bullets, but then he was felled. Yugiri, she… agony, and blood, so much blood. She was shot. The safety of the _Queen of Catastrophe_ , but then… Darkness. Nothingness."

Najila's face collapsed in grief and she openly wept. Her strong, brave Najila who had never wept for herself, grieved openly for little Yugiri. But each vision Najila saw was through the eyes of another. For a few moments, she had been Yugiri. It was as if she were the one terrified, shot, bleeding, _dying._

"I need B.A.B.E.L., get me Koichi Minamoto, and P.A.N.D.R.A., get me Magi Shiro," Sophie ordered. She quickly calculated the time. In Japan it would be just after 3 am. "Tell B.A.B.E.L. it's urgent, a matter of national security for Japan, and P.A.N.D.R.A. that it's a matter of life and death, that Andy Hinomiya is in danger. Get me whomever you can find, from both organizations," she revised. Sometimes her subjects took her too literally, in an effort to please her, and she could not afford to waste a moment.

"And summon my personal physician," she added, as she continued to stroke Najila's hair.

Najila's face flushed with heat. "F… forgive me, Highness," Najila mumbled, her face burning in shame, as she struggled to sit, apparently realizing Sophie was cradling her on her lap, in her arms on the floor. "I'm alright now."

"You're shaking, and your heart is beating as fast as a hummingbird's wings. Lie still and let me hold you,"

"Highness," she protested.

"Please. I need to hold you. Picturing Yu…giri…" her voice caught on name of the shy, sweet, precious child, as she pictured her lying lifeless in a pool of blood, and tears fell, splashing on Najila's face.

Najila reached up and brushed the tear track on her right cheek, took a deep breath and said bravely. "There was some time, some distance, but it happened within the hour, from the strength, the clarity. Perhaps Lord Hinomiya, at least, can yet be saved," she soothed.

"Princess Sophie! We've reached both Lieutenant Koichi Minamoto, assigned to B.A.B.E.L. and Magi Shiro on audio, but we're establishing a video call now. The two men are actually together," Earl Morgan, her Minister of Communications informed.

"Together? Has Magi Shiro been arrested?" Sophie asked anxiously. "Never mind. I'll speak to them," she said, looking guiltily at Najila.

"I'm fine now," the strong young woman insisted, the familiar steely determination in her voice, shakily rising to her feet. "You need to wash your face, and use some make-up, to hide that you've been crying. You can't appear weak to them."

She smiled sadly at Najila. "Compassion and grief aren't a weakness. I believe Mr. Minamoto and Mr. Shiro will both understand."

She was too anxious to sit, so she instead stood before the large video screen that overlooked the Council table. "Stand beside me. You will need to explain what you saw. Mr. Shiro and any additional representatives from P.A.N.D.R.A. will likely be agitated once they hear of Lord Hinomiya, and furious and grief stricken about…" She swallowed hard. "You must be strong."

"I will not fail you," Najila swore, stiffening her spine, standing at her side.

Sophie fought the urge to lean into her, as the screen snapped to life.

Her eyes widened as she saw a number of familiar faces from P.A.N.D.R.A., including Kyousuke Hyoubu, and her breath caught as she saw the wild look in his eyes, which were deadly and blazing, like a volcano about to erupt.

"Where's Andy?" Hyoubu demanded, enraged.

There was muttered outrage from her Councilors. "Silence!" she commanded, and they instantly quieted.

"We don't know all the details. Najila Hassan, my Minister of Psychic Affairs, had a vision of an attack against two of your people, most likely sometime within the past hour," she informed them, gesturing to Najila . "Soldiers. We don't know for certain who has committed this atrocity. It appears to be the Comerican military, but it is possible it is another group seeking to blame the Comericans, wearing their uniforms. We are hoping Andy Hinomiya can yet be saved. We… Yugiri… I'm truly sorry. We believe she is... that she has been killed."

Princess Sophie gasped as Hyoubu vanished from the screen and reappeared in the Council chamber.

"Kyousuke!" a white haired woman and red haired girl both cried from on screen, and they too both disappeared and reappeared, in front of Hyoubu, and wrapped their arms around him, whether in comfort or restraint, it wasn't entirely clear.

Sophie's Ministers were in an uproar, and her heart pounded as if there was an enraged tiger standing before her. This was not the coolly polite man who had knelt before her and kissed her hand, pledging to aid her if the need arose, but a force of nature about to be unleashed.

"You need to stay calm. They might be able to help find him," the white haired woman urged.

"Kyousuke, please," the red haired girl pleaded.

"I need to touch her, to see what she saw," Hyoubu demanded, looking not at Sophie, but directly at Najila.

"You will not harm her," Sophie commanded imperiously, stepping protectively in front of her.

"Of course not. I do not harm ESPers, unless they betray me," Hyoubu snapped, the threat clear.

"He will not harm me," Najila said coolly, calmly, stepping out from behind her. "With Your Highness's permission?"

"Of course," Sophie replied, her voice regal and serene, but her heart pounding.

There was a brief flash of respect and approval in Hyoubu's face.

"Don't fight me. I sense you are strong enough you could damage yourself quite badly. I will only look at the vision," Hyoubu swore.

Najila strode to him bravely. He reached out and touched her face, and a sparkling iridescence enshrouded his hand for a moment, as his breath hitched, and he paled, and then a look of unbridled rage kindled upon his face.

"It is as I saw. The Comericans," he spat with pure venom, with hatred. "I will destroy them."

"Wait! You cannot go to war with Comerica or use more diplomatic channels, but we can," Sophie urged. "They do not recognize P.A.N.D.R.A. as a sovereign nation, but they recognize Monarch. They have kidnapped a Lord and killed a Lady of our land. We had planned to contact you, about the knighthood, the ennoblements. It was to be a day of celebration, a national holiday." She handed him the two letters patent.

His eyes widened as he read them. "You did this for them?" he asked in wonder. "Why?"

"I told you before, when I first met you: I wish Monarch to be a country where all ESPers are welcome, where they can live in safety. The two of them, all of P.A.N.D.R.A., saved my life. I would have been assassinated. It was my honor to reward them, to thank them. And now, it is too late for Yugiri, but perhaps I can save Lord Hinomiya, if we put diplomatic pressure to bear."

"I should have said so sooner, but Yugiri is alive. She was shot, it was a battle, but I saved her. It will not be pain free, she will need therapy and will be scarred, but she will recover," Hyoubu told her.

Relief almost felled her. She'd been so sure the sweet little girl was dead. She turned to the screen. "Mr. Minamoto, I need the cooperation of the Japanese government as well. It will not be enough that Lord Hinomiya is a citizen of Monarch, a noble and a knight. He needs diplomatic immunity. I want your government to officially recognize him, retroactively to the date he saved my life, as Monarch's official Ambassador to Japan. We will modify these documents and our records accordingly. That way, by abducting him, Comerica has committed a blatant act of war against both Monarch and Japan."

"Actually, I will be the one who will be able to arrange that for you," the white haired woman claimed. "My name is Director Tsubomi, of B.A.B.E.L., and I quite literally know where the skeletons in everyone's closets are, within the Japanese government. We'll have Andy Hinomiya's status immediately instated, so it can be verified by the Comericans, when they check your claim. Please, contact the Comerican President and urge him to settle the matter peacefully with the immediate return of Andy Hinomiya, as well as of the two B.A.B.E.L. agents, who we are certain were also abducted, Kenji Yamamoto and Keiko Otoyama. Otherwise we will have no choice but to shame the U.S. in front of the United Nations of the World, requesting their intervention and publically protest this outrage," the woman claimed, her eyes shining with a cold inner fire no less terrifying than Hyoubu's.

Hyoubu was looking stunned at the powerful woman.

"I told you we would help," Director Tsubomi scolded affectionately, as if he were a child.

Sophie's eyes widened as she looked from one face to the other in dawning comprehension. There was a distinct familial resemblance between the two. _Are they cousins? Surely not siblings?_

"I think we should give fair warning to certain Comericans, unofficially, of course, to ensure their government does not do anything foolish, in an attempt to save face, by burying the evidence," Minamoto cautioned grimly.

Hyoubu looked at him sharply, as if he was about to protest involving any Comericans, but then suddenly appeared to know whom he was suggesting. "By all means, let us call them," he agreed.

0 0 0

U.S.E.I. Agent Ken McGuire forced himself to stand still for the optic scan, the puddle he was making from the enforced inactivity creating a slip hazard in front of Colonel Grisham's door, something his fellow agent, Mary Ford would easily be able to eliminate, with her unique hydrokinetic ability. He sighed. His psychometry was cool, useful, but with rare exception a passive power, useless in a combat situation. There was a melodic ping as the security system recognized his eye, and the door slid open.

He stripped off the atypical overcoat in relief, hanging it on the coat rack, on the opposite side of his superior's cape, so he wouldn't get it wet. Fortunately the coat and his boots had been sufficient to keep his denim jacket and jeans dry, because it was raining cats and dogs outside, like a reenactment of the Noachian flood, and nothing was worse than wet denim. Or wet high-grade designer Kevlar made to look like denim.

It wasn't five o'clock yet, he normally would have already been in the office, if not in the field, but the mission that had brought them back to Washington, DC had wrapped remarkably quickly and today had been the first day of a rare four-day vacation. He should have known the one mission ending so easily presaged disaster elsewhere: Colonel Grisham would only have called him if the situation warranted it, if something serious had happened. But still, even having been prepared for something major, he'd only seen such a grim expression on his commanding officer's face a few times before, and he'd worked with the man as a Special Agent for years in the F.B.I., before being transferred to the U.S.E.I.

"What's happened, Colonel?" he asked without preamble. He knew it couldn't be that something had happened to Mary: the moment he got the emergency recall, he'd used his psychometry on the bracelet she'd given him the last time she'd nearly been killed on a mission, because on that occasion she had nearly died while he'd been getting to her apartment to grab something so he could use his psychometry to find her.

Colonel Grisham sighed heavily. "It's Cassandra. A vision."

Ken's eyes widened. "I thought she wasn't able to view anymore, that we risked going after Ihachigo a while back because we needed a reliable clairvoyant to replace her." They hadn't kept Ihachigo for long, the dead dolphin brain that had protected P.A.N.D.R.A.'s headquarters, the floating fortress, the _Queen of Catastrophe_ , before they'd sunk her. They were still dealing with numerous diplomatic repercussions from that fiasco.

The Colonel shook his head. "No, she hasn't been able to see new visions: she can't seem to get past The Prediction. Much like Ihachigo, as we discovered, to our dismay. He's a useful tool for low level predictions, like evading patrols, but his only two major predictions have apparently been the sinking of the _Catastrophe_ and the ESPer War."

"So what's happened?" Ken asked, more concerned than intrigued.

"The Prediction parameters have changed again, drastically, but this time in a dark direction, I'm afraid," the Colonel stated grimly.

The door opened, and Mary walked in. Even though it was pouring rain outside, and she wasn't wearing a raincoat or carrying an umbrella, her hair and signature denim shorts, halter top and cowboy boots were bone dry.

"Excellent. Now that you're both here together, I'll only have to tell this once. Earlier today-"

The Colonel's cell phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly at the number, what was for him was an expression of alarm or astonishment. He put the call on speaker. "This is Colonel Grisham."

"Colonel Grisham, this is Director Tsubomi of B.A.B.E.L. The U.S. is in grave danger. You need our help," she stated bluntly.

"I see. And would this danger have anything to do with Kyousuke Hyoubu?" he asked confidently.

Ken's eyes widened behind his concealing sunglasses, which he'd slipped on as soon as he entered the building. It sounded like Hyoubu's rather precipitous change of heart was short-lived.

"The U.S. has triggered an international incident, by abducting Monarch's Ambassador to Japan, and two Japanese government officials. Monarch and Japan are treating these abductions as Acts of War. We are going through official channels as well, of course, but we thought it would be prudent to inform you immediately," Director Tsubomi claimed

"I have reason to believe that, whatever has transpired, P.A.N.D.R.A. is also heavily involved," Grisham stated. "Why don't you cut to the chase and tell me the specifics of what's happened?"

"Baron Andrew Hinomiya, the Kingdom of Monarch's Ambassador to Japan, and two B.A.B.E.L. agents, Kenji Yamamoto and Keiko Otoyama, were attacked, injured and abducted a little over an hour ago on Comerican soil, by a large contingent of Comerican soldiers, using Comerican military hardware, including an advance ECM. We can transmit to you the GPS coordinates, but you won't find any evidence there, beyond faint psychometric readings. They were very thorough in erasing all trace of their actions."

Colonel Grisham was pulling up information on his laptop as they spoke, researching the name Andrew Hinomiya. The three of them were well aware of the man's status as No. 2 on the C.R.I.M.E. list, but this was the first they were hearing of his alleged formal ties to Monarch and the Japanese government.

"We are aware of Monarch's liberal policies regarding ESPers. But tell me, Director Tsubomi, why would Japan accept a man as an ambassador who is a known member of P.A.N.D.R.A. and ranked No. 2 on the C.R.I.M.E. list for acts of terrorism, including the murder of my former superior, the Director of the U.S.E.I., Alan Walsh?"

 _How did a murdering bastard like Hinomiya end up an ambassador?_

"Because the man in question is actually guilty of no such crime. He was, in fact, a U.S.E.I. agent until a few short months ago, sent to infiltrate P.A.N.D.R.A., to retrieve a certain device. He completed his mission, but was betrayed and shot by Director Walsh, who intended to kill him, and then erased all evidence that he ever worked for your agency. I'm sure if you dig deeply enough, you'll be able to find the proof of that. Prior to that, Hinomiya was wounded saving the life of the ruler of Monarch, Princess Sophie, and was knighted and ennobled for his act of selfless bravery, and given an estate in that country, and the prestigious position of Ambassador to Japan," she claimed.

"We're going through official channels as well, but we thought it prudent to involve you directly. The U.S. has been known on occasion to rewrite history rather drastically to protect itself," Director Tsubomi stated soberly. "We need to ensure that doesn't happen to Hinomiya, Yamamoto and Otoyama."

"Give me all the details you've got," the Colonel ordered.

Ken listened to the somewhat sketchy details. Certain portions were very specific, but others frustratingly vague.

"You were right to contact me. Personally, I think the way Japan views ESPers as National Treasures and not merely resources to be exploited is admirable and enviable. This wasn't a U.S.E.I. action – there have been significant changes in this organization since Director Walsh's demise – but we've had a few groups under investigation and shut down all but the last one. If the people who took those three ESPers are who I think they are, you're right: we don't have time to see this sanctioned as an official mission. I know how they operate. If you want your agents and Hinomiya to be salvageable, we need to move now. Send me everything you have on each of the missing people, as full a dossier as you can provide: pictures, powers, psychological profiles. I don't want to go in blind and end up killed by the people we're trying to rescue," Colonel Grisham commanded.

"I have to admit, I didn't expect you to be quite so eager to help," Director Tsubomi stated, suspicion in her voice.

"Before you start barking up the wrong tree, thinking our agency had something to do with this, or me personally, I want to assure you, that's not the case. I'm doing this for three reasons, one official, and two personal," the Colonel stated. "First and foremost, you will recall that you and I spoke about our own clairvoyant, one who shared a certain prediction you are also personally familiar with, about a potential ESPer War sometime within the next ten years. For the first time in decades, the probability figure for that event wavered from 86% in the past few months, sometimes dropping by as much as ten points or more at a time, before slowly rising again, but on the whole, slowly and steadily declining.

"Then two months ago there was a precipitous change. The number leapt to a full 95%, the night a certain ship sank, the highest we've ever seen for any prediction. Thankfully, it dropped just as abruptly, back to the low 80s and then slowly started sinking into the 70s. Then miraculously, late this morning, our time, without warning, that probability astonishingly and unexpectedly dropped to 12%.

"But a little over an hour ago, it just as inexplicably rose as precipitously as it had plummeted, to 99%. We're talking the likelihood of the catastrophic extinction of the entire human race. Just before you called, that number fell back down a bit, to 94%, and frankly, that 5% change seemed like a godsend. I have reason to believe that retrieving that single man, Hinomiya, can alter the future fate of the world. So hell yes, I'm going to help you."

"And the other two reasons?" Director Tsubomi pressed, not betraying whether what she'd heard had quelled her suspicions at all.

"Actions often have unintended consequences. For instance, my being shot down in World War II resulted in my power emerging. It is my fervent belief that a certain individual of our mutual acquaintance is the person responsible for my psychic powers manifesting, decades ago. And far more recently, while I was stationed in Japan, a person who was quite likely that selfsame nameless benefactor in conjunction with your people assisted me in enabling a certain very dear old friend died peacefully in her childhood home, in spite of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that were overcome to facilitate that.

"Think of this as my forgiveness for the first and my undying gratitude for the second and trust that I will do everything in my power to try to ensure the peaceful coexistence of ESPers and Normals in our world, not only for my own benefit, but for everyone's, including Ken and Mary here. The people in power in our country didn't listen to Cassandra for Korea, or Vietnam, or the Gulf, or the more recent wars we've been embroiled in, but by God, I'm going to ensure we prevent this next one."

"I'm sending you the dossiers you requested now, the ones we have in our files. You should be able to see them in your email," Director Tsubomi stated, his straightforward explanation apparently convincing her.

"Thank you, Director Tsubomi," the Colonel replied, the words clearly heartfelt.

"Now let's talk logistics, Colonel," Director Tsubomi stated coolly.


	10. Chapter 10 - Lab Rats

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 10 – Lab Rats

The first indication Andy had that he was awake was the all too familiar sensation of pain. He'd survived enough fights as a kid to know what the aftermath felt like of waking up after a bad beating. But he hadn't been this battered in years. Very few people, even groups of people, could take him down now.

He had no idea what had happened, but he was careful not to open his eyes yet, the government training that had been drilled into his head automatically kicking in and overriding his natural instinct to immediately open his eyes and leap up, ready to fight. " _Assess your environment. Use your other senses first: touch, hearing, smell, even taste. Those seconds or minutes or hours, that information, could save your life or provide the opportunity to formulate your escape plan, if you've been captured by the enemy."_

Andy forced his racing heart to calm, so his elevated breathing didn't betray that he was awake, so that panic didn't kick in his fight or flight response beyond the bearable degree it already was. If whoever had hurt him was still around and they hadn't already realized he was conscious, he wouldn't give them that advantage.

 _Concentrate. I'm lying on what feels like a metal cot without a pad. If I break the frame, I can use the pieces as tonfa, I'll have weapons. But there are metal cuffs digging into my wrists, and possibly around my ankles, though I can't tell through my boots. Chains. The ones on my wrist are attached to chains._

 _They left my clothes and boots and jacket on, that's good, but they're soaking wet. My hair's wet too, and I can taste mud in my mouth, so maybe I was pushed into a river or lake? I don't taste salt, so it wasn't the ocean, and it's mud, not sand. I can still feel my shoulder holster, but the weight of my gun is gone. Are the lockpicks still in the cuffs of my jacket? Don't check yet. You need more sensory input first._

 _The air is cold, it's got that recycled, self-contained feeling, like on a plane, but I don't hear engines, or even vent: if it's a building, there's not a vent in here. No overt sounds, other than a distant mechanical hum, air vents elsewhere, probably. No movement, no people. Could I be underground? In a basement? There's some kind of light, I can see it through my eyelids: it's not pitch black._

 _I'm shivering: maybe shock or exposure, infection if I have any bad untreated wounds, especially if I was in still water, like a pond, somewhere with a lot of bacteria, but I don't smell moss or rotting plants on my clothes. Could it have been rain? Rain!_

Memory flooded him. He'd been driving in a torrential downpour, creeping along, it had been hard to see the road, and out of nowhere, a helicopter had swooped down, and then Humvees and troop transports had come barreling out of the trees, surrounding him, ramming him, forcing him off the road. _An ambush. Soldiers._ They'd been in the uniforms of the Comerican military. No faces he recognized, too many to count, too well organized, too much high tech gear – that ECM had been state of the art but unnecessary, against him – so it couldn't have been personal. Apparently either he'd stirred up a hornet's nest with his questions regarding his parentage or some misguided asshole was out for justice for Director Walsh's death.

He tensed, and tortured and abused muscles stiff from cold and pain protested. Andy hissed in pain, cursing himself for it in the next moment, for betraying himself with the sound.

"Hinomiya? Are you awake? Can you hear me?" a male voice asked, intent, urgent, but somewhat distant, maybe dozens of feet away.

Andy froze, yanking him out of the memory. It wasn't the voice of anyone he recognized.

"Come on, damn it, say something! You're awake, right? I just heard you again, and I've heard you moaning, you've got to be able to hear me, can't you? I'm in the cell diagonally across from yours and I saw them drag you in there. Well, I saw you go past the barred window in my door and heard the door to yours open. I haven't seen Otoyama or heard her since they captured us," the voice supplied, as if he knew him.

 _Otoyama is a Japanese name._ _Am I back in Japan?_

"I'm Yamamoto by the way. Kenji Yamamoto. I'm certain they're monitoring our cells, though I haven't been able to spot the cameras, so watch what you say, but it's not like my name is a secret. Those Comerican bastards know who we are, they found our IDs. They have no right to hold us here. We have diplomatic immunity. We're supposed to be allies, damn it!" he yelled the last part loudly, angrily, apparently at their captors. "We're from B.A.B.E.L." he supplied helpfully.

 _B.A.B.E.L . agents?_ If the voice was telling the truth, whoever had caught them both, or the three of them, it sounded like, didn't care who they pissed off. They must know he was part of P.A.N.D.R.A. He was No. 2 on the C.R.I.M.E. list, second only to Kyousuke. _Kyousuke!_ What he wouldn't give to see his face right now, that sardonic smirk of his.

"We were sent to monitor you. To make sure you weren't up to anything. You didn't make it easy, you know? It's not like our powers work around you. But we didn't lose you, not once, the whole time you were here in Comerica, not even that night Hyoubu was attacked in Maldrid and you switched cities. We heard you booking your cruise ship ticket to Japan tonight under a fake name. We ticketed for the same damn boat, arranged for the cabin right next to yours. I thought we were going home, that I'd be able to see… But I guess none of us are going to get to go home." The voice sounded fatalistic, rather than broken and defeated, or frightened.

"I'm glad I'm getting this chance to talk to you. I hope you can actually hear me. I don't blame you for not trusting me, though. I wouldn't trust me either, if I was you. But I just wanted to apologize for spying on you. It wasn't anything personal. It was just orders. In spite of the fact that you ended up hooking up with P.A.N.D.R.A. you really seem like an OK guy to me. We know those stories the Comericans spread about you murdering the U.S.E.I. Director Alan Walsh are bullshit. As far as I know, you're not actually guilty of any crimes. Just guilt by association, for the company you keep.

"We would have tried to stop them, the Comericans, but they actually caught us before they got you. We don't know if they detected our powers somehow, or just tracked us through our homing beacons. I think it might be the latter, because they dug them out of our arms as soon as they caught us.

"I… um… I hadn't ever killed anyone, until today. I was trained to, but I never had to cross that line before, you know? I guess they'll probably get back at me for that, for the guy I killed. I mean, more than they already did, when they caught me. The worked me over pretty thoroughly, though from what I saw as you went by, I think you got it far worse than I did. Otoyama, she took out at least three of them. I… I'm not sure she's still alive. She wasn't the nicest person, but we were partners for almost two months and… I really don't want her to be dead."

Now Andy could hear fear, hopelessness. It could be an elaborate trick, but his gut was telling him it wasn't. And if they were monitoring the cells, they likely could tell he was awake, or at least waking up. If he pretended he hadn't heard any of that, though, it might give him a tiny edge.

Andy moaned loudly, and then shifted visibly, for the benefit of whatever cameras and other monitoring devices were in his own cell, and put his hand to his head, regretting it when the heavy chain manacled to his wrist hit him in his left cheek. Someone had landed a particularly vicious kick to that cheek. Thankfully, his cheekbone or jaw hadn't been broken, but it still hurt like a bitch.

"Where the hell am I? What the fuck happened?" he asked, playing the role of the coarse and stupid soldier, in case these men didn't know everything about him.

He opened his eyes and discovered he was in a windowless and featureless room. No. Not entirely. There were bars on a tiny window set in the lone, metal door. The cot was bolted into the metal wall and dismayingly sturdy looking, but at least his ankles weren't bound. Their mistake.

"Hinomiya! I guess I've been babbling like an idiot to empty air. I'm Kenji Yamamoto, a B.A.B.E.L. agent, I was spying on you, sorry, and the Comericans have captured us, and my partner, Otoyama. We're in some kind of underground research facility. They have ECMs all over, in the corridors, in our cells, which means either government or high budget private, but I think the former," Yamamoto said, a lot more succinctly than before, providing information he'd left out earlier, too.

"Any idea what they want with me?" Andy asked, cutting to the chase, even as he frowned. There wasn't an ECM in his cell. Which meant either they knew they didn't need one, or worse, that they knew that having one turned on him would mean that his power could be suppressed, and P.A.N.D.R.A. could find him.

"Unfortunately, yeah: DNA and sperm samples. They want to replicate your power, create an army just like you, of biological ECMs. I heard them joking about the fun they were going to have cutting you up and collecting specimen samples," Yamamoto claimed, sounding sickened and infuriated.

Andy felt his stomach clench in horror. That was worse than what he'd been thinking. It sounded like he'd been captured by people like the ones who had created Yugiri. Hell, for all he knew, it was the same group. The thought of dozens or maybe hundred of kids, his kids, with barcodes on the backs of their necks, being treated like they'd treated Yugiri, like weapons instead of children, people, made him want to smash heads and blow the place to hell.

 _Yugiri! Did she get away?_ He'd been overwhelmed by the men attacking him. He belatedly realized he wasn't sure she'd escaped. The thought that she might be a prisoner here too terrified him. And if she hadn't, P.A.N.D.R.A. wouldn't even know to look for either of them. "The little girl who was with me. Did she get away?" Andy demanded.

The silence was deafening.

"Yugiri! What happened to Yugiri?" Andy demanded, his heart hammering, all worry for himself forgotten.

"I'm sorry. They were joking about her too. They said it was… was like shooting ducks in a barrel. That even if all the bullets didn't hit her, teleporting wounded like that would… that there was no way she could keep her concentration long enough to reappear. That she would be lost 'between'."

 _No! Yugiri!_ _They couldn't have…they_ _ **shot**_ _…_ She'd been so afraid but so brave. She'd died trying to save him, to protect him, when all he'd wanted was to protect her. Andy felt hatred and rage tear through him, far worse than the night of the attack against the _Catastrophe_ , when that bastard Walsh had captured Yugiri. Then he'd still thought it was a mistake, that he could be reasoned with, until he'd shot him without hesitation, aiming for his heart, to kill.

 _Don't let her be dead. Please. She can't be dead. Not because of me._

"We need to get you out of here, somehow, but I can't do a damned thing," Yamamoto urged. "I'm chained to the cot in my cell, and even without the ECM, I don't have any offensive powers, and I'm not in the best shape right now. But I've been trained in combat, these bastards aren't even human, you're my mission, and I think they might have killed Otoyama, as well as that little girl, so I'll do everything I can to get you out of here," Yamamoto swore, sounding as infuriated as he was.

"Is anyone else imprisoned here too?" Andy asked woodenly, forcing down his grief, his fury, channeling it, banking it, so he could unleash it later.

"No one who's answered me. So either no, or they're unconscious or gagged or paranoid or… I really don't want to think about other possible reasons, physical reasons they can't speak," Yamamoto admitted quietly.

This wouldn't be as easy as slipping out from the wires that bound him, when The Children attacked the Catastrophe, when he'd dislocated both arms and then snapped them back into place, a handy little trick he'd learned as a kid, to break out of holds when kids at the orphanage had ganged up on him, thanks to the double jointed body he'd been born with, luckily having rolled that right, at least, in the genetic crapshoot that had predestined a large portion of his life. But not all of it. He refused to be at the mercy of fate any longer, and he was a firm believer in making his own luck. Preparation for the unexpected was key to survival for anyone, ESPer or Normal.

Making sure his back was to the wall, so the hidden cameras he saw and any he might have missed couldn't see, he felt for the lockpicks hidden in the lining of the cuffs of his jacket, feeling grim satisfaction and relief when he found them, and because, injured as he was, he still had the use of both hands. He began laboriously working the left lockpick out of the seam, though he wouldn't visibly act yet; he'd pick the locks on his wrists and then wait until the door was opened, until he was being taken to whatever lab they planned to torture and vivisect him in, to try to break free of his cell. Thankfully his ankles weren't bound.

He couldn't risk freeing Yamamoto. He might be a plant, not B.A.B.E.L. at all. He'd have to escape without him, and then alert B.A.B.E.L.

"If you think you can escape, go for it. Don't try to get me or Otoyama or anyone else who might be prisoner here. Just tell B.A.B.E.L., anonymously even, you don't have to let them know it's you," Yamamoto said, as if he could read his mind.

 _Had he?_ Regardless of whether he could trust Yamamoto, or whoever he might be, there must be ECMs here, if they were capturing ESPers, but considering his power, would they be on?They wouldn't be needed. And if they were on, Kyousuke would find him, if he was looking. _But he doesn't know I'm in danger._

And there was another factor. _What if Kyousuke was angered by the envelope?_ Kyousuke was extremely temperamental, as if his psyche had been frozen as a teenager when he died as one. He felt and experienced everything vehemently, passionately, beneath that veneer of cold control. _Was I wrong? Does he feel something genuine for Kaoru?_

Andy had never felt more unsure, more alone.

"For what it's worth, I know you didn't kill Director Walsh. B.A.B.E.L. knows. You did some trespassing in government facilities, Comerica's, not ours, but apart from likely killing some soldiers of various countries, we don't think you've killed anyone. You've done nothing to warrant you being on the C.R.I.M.E. list, other than associating with known terrorists. And from what I've seen these past few months, personally, I don't think P.A.N.D.R.A. _is_ a terrorist organization. I think they're a sovereign nation, at war with the rest of the world.

"It's ironic, them assigning me to this mission. I was happy in B.A.B.E.L. I'd deluded myself into thinking I was making a difference in the world. But after what I've seen, I've been seriously considering quitting B.A.B.E.L. when I got back, handing in my resignation, along with my mission report. Because the things I've seen here, in Comerica… I can't believe our government sanctions what your former government is doing. I've heard there's a prediction about a war coming soon, between ESPers and Normals. Frankly, I think it's inevitable, at this rate. And I honest to God don't know which side to be on. Because I'm an ESPer, but my family, they're all Normals. Although I guess none of that matters now. It doesn't look like either of us will live to see it," he added fatalistically.

Andy tensed as a new sound invaded his prison, a door opening, and approaching footsteps echoing tinnily from the corridor. Thankfully, he'd worked the lockpick free. He got to work on the cuffs around his wrists. He was running out of time, and he needed his hands free by the time they opened the door.

"I'm agent Kenji Yamamoto of B.A.B.E.L.," his alleged fellow prisoner called out. "I demand you immediately release the three of us and any other ESPers you have legally detained. By taking us prisoner, you're in violation of the new U.N.o.W. Esper Protection Treatise, as well as the Comerican/Japanese E.R.A., the U.S.E.I./B.A.B.E.L. Esper Response Accords."

The protest was a futile one. Obviously these people didn't care what the United Nations of the World or individual governments or organizations had recently agreed to.

A coolly assessing face appeared in the window of his cell and then there was the sound of a lock being disengaged, at the same moment as there was a soft, satisfying click behind his back as he opened the first manacle, but then an alarm shrilled.

Andy cursed as he realized he'd triggered some kind of security system, even as his body was flooded with electricity, the cuffs suddenly acting as a high powered taser. His whole body stiffened and he screamed involuntarily as the pain of his existing injuries increased tenfold, as his drenched clothes began steaming, as every muscle tensed and spasmed, the pick flying from his fingers as his entire nervous system was overloaded with electricity and agony.

"You bastards! What are you doing to him?" Yamamoto yelled.

Andy could barely hear him as he fought to stay conscious as an infuriated face appeared over his own, that of a seasoned soldier, or someone playing at being one, a man in a Comerican military issue uniform. "You don't get to die that easily. You cost me four good men. I'm going to enjoy watching them cut you apart," he taunted, as he did something to the wall and the current stopped.

Andy could only lie there, unable even to stop from moaning in agony, twitching wildly, his body still hijacked by the current, as five men surrounded him.

"Strip him and burn his clothes! I don't want any more surprises," the man barked.

Rough hands grabbed him, tearing at Andy's sodden clothes. He was helpless to resist, as the fabric ripped. They stripped him naked, taking everything, even his destroyed limiter which was hung on a chain around his neck, and the new watch for Yugiri. Through a haze of pain he could hear Yamamoto yelling more protests and threats, sounding increasingly frantic. Perhaps he really was a B.A.B.E.L. agent after all, and not one of these men.

Andy was half dragged, half carried through the doorway to the corridor, and then down it. He heard Yamamoto's voice becoming more distant as Andy vainly tried to get his body to obey his commands, even as he counted silently, trying to gauge distance and direction.

He heard another door open and he was able to move his head just enough to get a sideways look at the room. His eyes widened in horror as he was dragged into what looked like an operating theater, he began thrashing and struggling, but he was still completely uncoordinated, more helpless than a child, and then a fist cracked into the side of his head, stunning him for a vital few seconds. He was thrown onto something hard and cold and metal, he felt straps tightening on his wrists, his ankles, around his waist, his neck as he was bound spread-eagle to the operating table.

"What are you doing to my test subject?" a voice demanded shrilly.

"Delivering it," the commander snapped.

"You've damaged it! Do you have any idea how unique, how valuable this specimen is? I insisted you not drug it because I don't want tainted samples. Couldn't you subdue and transport it without causing so much physical damage? Its powers have no offensive capability against Normals," the voice scolded.

"It's his own fault for trying to escape, after we've been so nice to him. All we did was soften him up for you a little, Doc. Nothing compared to what you're about to do to him, right? I turned off the juice before the cuffs could finish frying him. He's only medium rare, not well done," the soldier replied calmly.

Dazed and dizzy from the blow to his head, and the current, Andy strained against the restraints, as he fought against the need to vomit, only halfway certain it was an aftereffect of being beaten and tased and likely concussed, hating the knowledge it was just as likely from fear. He could resist interrogation, torture, even brainwashing, heal and recover. But as he as he felt electrodes being attached to his forehead and chest and took in the horrifying array of gleaming, ominous looking medical equipment, he was terrified they were going to maim or lobotomize him, or simply dissect or vivisect him.

He never should have left Hyoubu, Yuguri, Yoh the others. He'd been a fool to look for his birth family, when he had all the family he could ever want in P.A.N.D.R.A. Now Yugiri was dead and these bastards were going to breed an entire race of children like her from his sperm, ones raised as living weapons, to use against P.A.N.D.R.A. and every other ESPer on the planet. Against B.A.B.E.L. and the Queen and that damned prophecy that still stood, that sometime within the next few years, Akashi would lead a rebellion against the Normals.

He wanted to scream at these men for their stupidity, but he knew it was futile and he wasn't sure he could speak. Didn't they realize they were creating the very future they feared? That damned dolphin brain was straight out of a Greek tragedy, like the story of Oedipus, of the king who caused his own downfall, creating the future he feared by trying to kill his son as an infant, so he wouldn't be murdered by him as an adult. The ominous predictions of that dolphin had caused more harm to ESPers than a hundred thousand Normals ever could.

A madman posing as a doctor moved into view, in hospital scrubs, surgical max and latex gloves. He approached and began hooking monitors up to him. "I suppose brutality is better than the alternative. The mistake you made before was allowing some of your researchers to treat the test subjects like actual children, when they're merely tools, like this one's offspring will be. Now get out of here and let me work. I've already been delayed by the flooding and road closure and am off schedule. I should have been here before you brought it in, so I could start work immediately after you delivered it. I should have already begun sample collection."

"Yeah, sure Doc. Sample collection. Just remember to give a copy of the video to Johnson. That sick fucker needs some new jerk off material," one of the soldiers snarked.

"Sergeant Johnson deserves more than that. Call me after the 100 are done, when you're ready to cut out his eyes and remove the other parts. He and the rest of my men and I deserve to see that part live and in person," the Captain ordered.

"Absolutely not! I require a sterile environment for the tissue extraction. I will not have you contaminating my… " the doctor's complaint trailed off midsentence. "I mean, yes sir, of course, sir," the man stated, sounding unexpectedly cowed.

There was the sound of receding footsteps, and a door opening and closing.

 _My eyes! They're going to cut out my eyes! Cut me apart!_

Andy felt another surge of adrenaline flood him and he struggled against the restraints and he became aware of a beeping sound pinging more and more rapidly. Apparently one of the machines was a heart-rate monitor, and his heart was pounding wildly.

The scientist entered his field of view, glanced at one of the machines, noting the numbers, and then he returned to the small metal tray on the stand beside the operating table where he'd retrieved the electrodes from earlier. He lifted three more gleaming electrodes off it in his latex gloved hand.

Andy's flesh crawled as this time the man wordlessly attached one of them to his penis and two to his scrotum. He expected to see twisted glee or lust in the man's eyes, but his stomach turned as he still saw nothing, a complete lack of emotion, of humanity. Then the man turned and picked up a metallic cylinder from the table which had Andy clenching the muscles in his buttocks panic, especially when revoltingly warm latex covered fingers grasped his penis, but instead of the feared anal intrusion, the man surprised him by fitting one end of the apparently hollow cylinder over the end of his penis. Abruptly there was a sensation of suction. As soon as the device sealed onto him, the man removed his hands, and headed to a bank of equipment.

"Specimen 643, batch M8-002, is now fully prepped for procedure one." The clinical, detached voice was far more chilling than maniacal laughter would have been. Fanaticism, bloodlust, a need for vengeance, he could understand, even empathize with, if not support, attempt to influence, to reason with, but this man wasn't even human.

 _643\. 642 others before me, tortured and vivisected and dead ESPers, men and women and most likely children._

The doctor was apparently already recording. The thought of Kyousuke somehow managing to find this place, far too late to save him, but finding the recordings, watching them, made him renew his futile struggles.

Andy heard the door open again and the doctor looked up, a flash of quickly masked fear on his face, as the man tensed. "Cap…? Who the devil are you? You're interrupting my work! Why are you here?" he demanded acidly, once he realized it wasn't the Captain he feared.

Andy felt a wild moment of hope. _Kyousuke? P.A.N.D.R.A.? Even B.A.B.E.L.?_

But when three people came into Andy's field of vision, he didn't recognize any of them.


	11. Chapter 11 - Liberty Bells

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 11 – Liberty Bells

The first person Andy saw enter the operating room was an older man, with a graying buzzcut and a nasty scar down the right half of his face, crossing his eye, but apparently not blinding it, dressed in a suit, but covered by a ridiculous cape with a high collar, one that looked like it had been stolen it off the set of an old Bella Lugosi _Dracula_ movie. The second was a young man, with blond hair, wearing sunglasses, handsome and leanly muscled, in dark denim jeans, a button down pale blue chambray shirt, and an open denim jacket. The third was a young woman, in a white cowboy hat, white haired and blue eyed, in spite of her dark skin tone, in denim shorts, and a bright red halter top which barely contained her enormous breasts. He suspected the latter two might both be wearing cowboy boots, but he couldn't see past their knees, from where he was lying, strapped to the operating table.

"Colonel JD Grisham and Lieutenants Ken McGuire and Mary Ford," the older man introduced sternly, in response to the doctor's demand that they identify themselves.

Andy felt his breath catch in his throat. _Colonel Grisham. The ESPer Killer._ The man was a legend in both the U.S. Army and the U.S.E.I., an Esper himself, a Level 7 telepath, with the unique ability to copy the power of any ESPer he met, using his telepathy. But Andy's power would negate that ability. Grisham wouldn't be able to copy his power. So then this was a U.S.E.I. operation, as he'd suspected. Clearly the U.S. had determined he was a threat Comerica could ill afford, now that he was an expatriate associated with P.A.N.D.R.A.

The doctor's eyes widened. Apparently he'd recognized the name as well. "You can't have him! Not until I'm done collecting my samples, and he'll be dead then anyway: I need his eyes and brain. General Wainwright is in charge of this operation and he outranks you. Now get out! I'm already behind schedule and you're contaminating my testing area," he demanded boldly.

Lieutenant McGuire headed for Andy, the look of fury on his face making Andy's heart rate spike in fear, bound and helpless as he was, until the man's expression unexpectedly softened and changed to compassion, confusing him. But then McGuire paled and staggered, and the look changed to wary surprise. "Colonel, Mary, don't get too close. Even though the ECMs are running at full power, apparently they've managed to reactivate the full breadth of Hinomiya's power somehow," McGuire said, as his hands moved towards the opening of his jacket.

Andy tensed, helpless to protect himself. He expected McGuire to pull a gun, but instead he stripped off his jacket, and to Andy's surprise, draped it gently over his naked groin, giving him some semblance of modesty. The unexpected kindness after his brutal treatment nearly broke Andy, and he fought to maintain his composure.

"Noted," Colonel Grisham replied to McGuire tersely, glaring at the doctor with unconcealed loathing. "Yes, we are aware of the paranoid sadist in charge of this pet project. General Wainwright is currently under arrest for kidnapping and multiple human rights violations and is in protective, isolated custody, because that fool has put a target on his chest and made a deadly enemy the full might of the U.S. military might not be able to protect him from. And frankly, we're not at all eager to try, considering that same target is now painted on our entire country. It's not only Kyousuke Hyoubu and P.A.N.D.R.A. who will be after you. Or do you claim ignorance of the fact that you have committed an act of war against the countries of both Monarch and Japan, by abducting Monarch's ambassador to Japan, Lord Andrew Michael Hinomiya, as well as two Japanese government officials?" Colonel Grisham claimed outrageously.

"We… he… that's absurd! He's nothing, a nobody! An unwanted orphan, a dishonorably discharged soldier, an assassin, a criminal!" the man sputtered, his veneer of control shattering, looking increasingly panicked.

"Ken, Mary, you free and guard Ambassador Hinomiya. I'll handle this garbage, as well as any other nuisances that try to disturb us," the Colonel claimed as he effortlessly pinned the doctor against the wall and cuffed him, using raw physical power and skill, rather than psychic power. "From reading this reprehensible degenerate's mind, it doesn't appear that Ambassador Hinomiya has any immediately life threatening injuries, nor has he been drugged. It should be safe for him to move. Free him and assist him in finding some clothes as quickly as you can, before our additional forces arrive," He looked pointedly at the young blond.

 _Lord? Ambassador? Additional forces?_ Andy's head was spinning, and not only because he likely had at least a mild concussion from the punch, not to mention the previous damage he'd sustained. His mouth was dry as a desert, but he seemed to finally have control of his muscles again. Maybe he'd be able to speak.

"Other prisoners. B.A.B.E.L., allegedly. Kenji Yamamoto and Otoyama, a woman. Both injured," Andy said glibly.

McGuire's eyes were concealed by his sunglasses, but the warm smile McGuire gave him was unexpected and dazzling, as he began to undo the restraint around Andy's right wrist, though the man was still pale, and Andy could see by his face he was clearly feeling the adverse effects of his power, the nausea and headaches it always caused in other ESPers, without his special limiter to protect them.

"You sound OK. I was worried when you weren't talking, the damage they might have already done. Don't worry. We already found Yamamoto. He's how we knew where to find you. This place may not be in any official government databases and is protected by ECMs, but nothing can protect against a Level 7 Psychometrist and a truly gifted hacker. Once we had the location from scanning one of Yamamoto's belongings, we were able to bluff our way in. Colonel Grisham is legendary, after all.

"Yamamoto didn't trust us at all, but the Colonel was able to learn your general whereabouts from his mind. I'm afraid we left him locked up: we couldn't risk freeing him and having him try to interfere with our rescuing you, and we needed to get to you as quickly as we could, considering you were in here. But we'll rescue him too, and Otoyama, and anyone else captive here. Do you know where your clothes are? Are they in here?"

Andy shook his head, relieved he'd been able to speak before, that he could communicate. "They tore them off me in the cell and said they were going to burn them."

"There are scrubs in that cabinet. And bottled water in that refrigerator that's safe to drink," the Colonel claimed, gesturing towards them, from the shimmering effervescent tingle around his opposite hand, still reading the doctor's mind.

"On it," Mary said, heading for them, as McGuire finished removing the restraint, on Andy's other wrist, and began working at the one around his torso. As soon as it was off, he headed for his left ankle, which was still bound. Andy sat up cautiously, shakily, wincing in pain from his injuries. Taking visual stock, something he hadn't had the luxury to do before, after he'd been stripped, he saw that his body was mottled everywhere with massive black, purple and blue bruises, and covered in abrasions.

He yanked off the electrodes on his head and chest and then lifted the denim jacket, and suppressing a shudder, pulled the three off his penis and scrotum, and found the release catch for the empty collection bottle and broke the seal. He flung them across the room, as McGuire removed his final ankle restraint.

Ford handed him the scrubs and Andy dressed as quickly as he could, ignoring the pain from his injuries. But when he tried to return McGuire's jacket, he shook his head. "You should wear it. You're shivering, you're hair's wet, and your skin is clammy. Even if you're not in shock, you need it more than I do, and not just because we don't want you getting sick: it's custom made, bullet resistant, so be sure to fasten it. I don't want to take any chances with your safety." He removed his boots and socks and insisted Andy wear them as well.

Andy knew he'd have better traction and be harder to take down in the boots than barefoot, that his kicks would be more effective, and he could cross outside terrain easier, so he took them, but he nearly fell over when he lifted his right foot, hissing in pain.

"Let me do it. From the bruises, I don't think there's a square inch of you they didn't hit. Bastards. Come on. We need to get you out of this part of the facility, before company arrives – ours or theirs," McGuire claimed.

Andy was relieved to find he could stand, after they got the boots on him, that the affects of the taser cuffs had finally worn off and he'd be able to walk under his own power, even if running or fighting would be a challenge.

"Catch," Ford said, tossing him a water bottle.

Andy tried, but he fumbled it, and almost fell when he overbalanced, hissing in pain from the kidney punch he'd taken.

"Sassafras! Sorry," she cursed and apologized, as a feeble red glow surrounded the bottle as it flew gently towards her. "Durned ECMs. I hate not being able to use my full power." She must be over a Level 4 then, likely a 6 or 7, to still be able to use her power to that degree. She walked the bottle to him, which meant she knew it would have fallen if it had gotten too close using her telekinesis, that his power would have nullified hers.

Andy accepted the bottle, cracked it open, and rinsed his mouth thoroughly with the water and spit onto the bed, getting the grit left from his face full of mud out of his mouth, before taking a second mouthful and swallowing, and then tucked the capped bottle into his new jacket pocket. He knew he couldn't chug it without vomiting it back up, and he needed his hands free.

"I'll go first," Ford said. "You stay behind me, but back a ways, if you can, to whatever your power limit is. Because I won't be able to protect you well if I'm puking my guts out. I'm just glad I didn't eat already. We'll head back to Yamamoto and call in the cavalry from there."

"I need a weapon," Andy insisted, both to test them, and because he felt like he was still naked without one.

"I'm a Psychometrist, I don't have offensive abilities, so I can't give you my gun, but you can hold onto my granddaddy's knife for a spell," McGuire said, reaching up and behind his head and pulling a wickedly sharp Bowie knife out from between his shoulder blades, apparently from a concealed sheath. He handed it to him by the grip, not touching the blade.

Andy took it and tested the balance, the feel, and made a few test swipes with it. "Thanks," he said, feeling more grounded than he'd been since before the attack.

"Let's go, Ambassador Hinomiya," McGuire said differentially. "Keep your eyes open, and use Mary as your shield. It's just the three of us so far in here, we pretty much bluffed our way in, so there's still a lot of soldiers roaming around. If you'd been anywhere else but that operating room, we'd have disabled the ECMs first and called in our support – that was the original plan – but that delay would have been too dangerous for you, considering."

Ford led Andy down the corridor. Andy debated making a break for it – he didn't trust these people – but he wasn't really in any condition to go it alone, until he had a better weapon. He could try to disarm McGuire, but he wasn't sure how well that would go, in his current condition, and Ford looked like she might be a competent opponent, in spite of the outlandish way she was dressed. For most men, her ridiculous attire would provide a sizable distraction. Andy admitted it was hard enough walking down the corridor in a straight line, let alone to seriously consider fighting, as battered as he was.

As they headed down the corridor, Andy saw a number of cell doors similar to the one he'd been kept behind. Ford unerringly went to a particular one.

"Did you find him? Is he alright?" the now familiar voice of Yamamoto demanded anxiously, as soon as Ford drew even with his cell door window.

"We got him, and he's fine. Well, beaten up a bit, but still in one piece. We're coming in and calling the cavalry from your cell. It's going to get a little crowded around here, in a New York minute. Whatever you do, stay still, stay quiet, and don't antagonize any of them," Ford claimed, as she opened the door, which had already been unlocked.

"You can call them from here. I'm not going into that cell," Andy refused, tensing for an attack.

"I don't blame you. Mary, you get Yamamoto free, since the Colonel already confirmed his identity with his power. Actually, you can call them yourself, from here, Ambassador Hinomiya," McGuire said, as he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled something out. "Hyoubu and your other friends In P.A.N.D.R.A. are anxious to see you."

Andy expected a cell phone, not the distinctive and achingly familiar limiter on a chain, identical to his broken one, the one that had been in his breast pocket and was destroyed by the bullet: the one that had saved his life, when Director Walsh attempted to shoot him in the heart. The one that he'd kept treasured on a chain near his heart ever since.

"I don't understand," Andy said, stalling for time, though he understood all too well. They wanted him to put the limiter on. Hyoubu must be looking for him, and the second he damped his power, they'd turn off the ECMs, Kyousuke would teleport to him, and they'd ambush him.

McGuire nodded. "Minamoto and Director Tsubomi were right about you. You've got great survival instincts, even better now that you've already been betrayed once. Frankly, I'm surprised you trusted us as long as you did. I doubt you would have, if you weren't so badly injured already."

 _So they're claiming to be working with B.A.B.E.L._

"I know you won't believe me, but we're not trying to capture Kyousuke Hyoubu. We're actually working with him on this mission, as well as the rest of P.A.N.D.R.A., B.A.B.E.L. and the Kingdom of Monarch," the man claimed ridiculously.

"And we don't actually need you to wear the limiter, it just would help keep things from being a little less chaotic than they'll be now. The Colonel will have signaled to our friends, and we're working with a pretty powerful Technokinetic, as well as a virtuoso hacker. The ECMs should be shutting down right about now, and as long as we keep out of your range, they can home in on any of the three of us and Hyoubu isn't the only long range Teleporter working with us," McGuire explained almost apologetically.

Andy pulled back, ready to try to bolt, knowing it was futile. He couldn't run or fight with any proficiency right now, and the jacket, the boots, the knife, hell, even the water he'd drunk likely contained homing devices. But it was already too late, as in that instant, the corridor filled with people, as three distinct groups teleported simultaneously.

Andy tensed, ready to go down fighting, but then froze in disbelief and horror as Kyousuke, Magi, Yoh, Momiji and Momotaro appear beside Minamoto, The Children, Sakaki, and Director Tsubomi, and a third group he'd never seen before.

"Andy!" The furious, deadly look on Kyousuke's face immediately transformed to one of wary relief.

Except that wasn't really Kyousuke. They all looked real, authentic, believable, but none of them were reacting at all to the other two groups. P.A.N.D.R.A. would never work with the U.S.E.I and seldom with B.A.B.E.L., and Kyousuke had never called him by his given name before. This whole thing was definitely a twisted set up, a trap, a trick, to confuse him into betraying the real P.A.N.D.R.A.

Andy drew back further, his back literally against the wall, knife out and ready, knowing they could easily teleport it out of his hand, that any hostage he might have tried to take could have just as easily overpowered him, but he wasn't going to give in without a fight. "Stay back!"

The man with Hyoubu's face froze, an achingly familiar scowl darkening his perfectly feature face. "What's wrong?"

"You're not real," Andy accused.

The imposter turned to McGuire. "He's been drugged?" he fumed.

"No, the Colonel made sure he wasn't. But he's been treated pretty roughly. It's probably overwhelming, all of us being here, rescuing him," McGuire hazarded.

"I didn't trust you to start, but you overplayed your hand, all of them being here together like this," Andy accused.

"He doesn't believe it's really us. He thinks we're trying to trick him, to catch the real you, Hyoubu," the one who looked like Shiho Sannomiya stated wisely.

Kyousuke's doppelganger's eyes widened and then he looked intently at Andy. The man looked identical to Kyousuke. It hurt, looking at him, knowing he was fake, that the real Kyousuke was thousands of kilometers away.

"You're right. Andy has never looked at me with contempt and hatred before, not even the day we first met, when I poisoned him, not even the night that should have been his last, when he betrayed me. Especially not then.

"You must remember, Andy? You came to steal the _Catastrophe's_ heart, her brain. You held a gun on me, but couldn't bring yourself to shoot me, so you threw it at me instead. I attacked you with metal shrapnel, and then bolts, because I couldn't attack you directly, but I missed intentionally, because I couldn't bring myself to kill you, in spite of what you'd done. I knew they were using you, that you were a pawn in their game. And then, after fighting them, when I was drowning, you dove in after me, you saved me.

"But those weren't the first times you tried to protect me. When we first met, at the prison, you tried to protect me from the Warden and his henchmen. And when we were freeing Yugiri, you warned me of that pitiful creature's attacks, you fought it with me. After the _Catastrophe_ was sunk, when Director Walsh's men tried to kill us in that cursed facility they'd kept Yugiri in, you fought beside me. And then, when my power was running wild, consuming me, you refused to leave me. You saved me again. Don't you think it's time I repay you?" he asked.

 _How can he know so much? So many details, of times only the two of us were alone together? He can't be reading my mind. No one can read my mind._

"I cheat at pool using my sonic power. The Old Man makes you drink milk with him at the bar," the Yoh look alike piped up. "Come on, Hinomiya! It's us."

"The night you betrayed us, I caught you red handed, and one of the soldiers knocked me out. But you apologized for it with the best new home ever, and sunflower seeds, my favorite. How many other talking, flying squirrels can there be?" Momotaro demanded in a huff.

"Right after we first met, you made me sick and I wouldn't let you put sunscreen on me," Momiji chimed in.

"You were the only one who didn't know it was the Old Man's birthday and didn't get him a present, but then you turned around and got the perfect presents for all of us, although you read my book before I got it," Yoh added desperately.

"I let you wear one of my suits, after the Major threw you into the pool. I watched you dress, and you blushed, because you thought I was checking you out, but I really just didn't trust you, because we already knew you were a U.S. spy," Magi claimed.

Yoh glared at Magi, which was nothing new, Andy had seen that jealousy countless times. But he'd never seen Magi's hair wrap around Yoh's shoulders affectionately, possessively.

 _How can his hair move like that, if it's not Magi? I thought it was an illusion, hypnosis, costumes, make-up. Can it really be them?_

"I used my power to take the U.S.E.I. homing chip out of your head," Aoi Nogami piped up.

"And I wanted to kill you, or at least hurt you really badly, for betraying Kyousuke," Kaoru Akashi added. "But instead, we let you drive us and I confessed to you my own dream for the future." Her eyes flicked to her hand and then went to Minamoto.

Andy froze. She was wearing a diamond ring. An engagement ring. For a painful moment, he thought Kyousuke had given it to her, until he realized she was still looking at Minamoto, and the B.A.B.E.L. agent's eyes met hers in open adoration.

Andy looked at Kyousuke, who was watching Akashi, expecting to see annoyance at least, if not jealousy or anger, but instead he gave the couple an indulgent smile. Then he turned to Andy again and held out his hand. "Come with me, Andy. I want you safe on the _Catastrophe_. Just this once, I'll allow these others to wreak my vengeance for me."

Andy shook his head. In spite of what he had just said, he finally believed it was really them, but…"You don't know what they did. Yugiri," he said, choking on her name.

A flare of fury flashed across Kyousuke's face. "I know. But I need you both safe on the _Catastrophe._ And Patty is with her, but Yugiri will want to see us, when she wakes."

Andy gaped. "She… she's on the ship? She made it back? She… she's alive? I thought… Yamamoto said they… they shot her."

Incendiary rage burned in Kyousuke's eyes but then was muted. "They did. But I was able to save her, to repair a large portion of the damage, rebuild her shoulder blade. She'll still be able to use her arm, once she heals, but she'll need physical therapy and there will be a scar."

Picturing it made Andy sick. "It's my fault," he whispered.

"No," Kyousuke immediately denied.

"She tried to save me and she got shot. She nearly died. She's only six years old," Andy replied, anguished.

"She told us how you tried to protect her. You almost died for her. Those animals who attacked you and shot her are to blame, not you. Come, Andy. Let me take you home," Kyousuke urged again, still holding out his hand.

"Home." The word was almost a sob, the ache in Andy's chest felt like he was dying. But he couldn't let Kyousuke whisk him off to safety and leave Yoh and Magi and Momiji and Momotaro here, in danger. "No. Not unless you all come with me," he argued. He'd never forgive himself if something happened to any of the others.

Colonel Grishman came striding down the corridor. "It might not be a bad idea, for P.A.N.D.R.A. to withdraw without harming anyone, leaving this as a joint operation between the U.S., Japanese and Monarch agencies. P.A.N.D.R.A. hasn't made any overt moves since Maldrid, and that was self defense. Public opinion in this country has been swaying in favor of ESPers, with Norman Green's election, and in P.A.N.D.R.A.'s favor, with all you did to prevent his assassination and a catastrophe in New York. Leave this to us, and we'll see justice is served," Colonel Grisham stated.

"Tch. Justice? There is no justice for ESPers. We stand alone," Kyousuke argued.

"Well today you seem to be standing with a whole passel of people looking to help you, and they're not all ESPers," McGuire argued.

"Leave it to the Liberty Bells to let freedom ring," Ford stated with a wink, striking a pose, confusing Andy.

"I believe there's a little girl back at home on the _Catastrophe_ waiting for her family to come home safely," the Colonel urged, something in his voice painting a picture of Yugiri so clearly that the simple statement sounded incredibly poignant and heartrending.

"Tch. And Hinomiya says I play dirty pool. It looks like you're not the only dangerous old man here, Old Man," Yoh teased Kyousuke.

Kyousuke ignored him and turned to his sister looking pointedly at her. "I trust you to act in our interests."

Director Tsubomi's look of pleased surprise changed to a predatory smile eerily similar to that of a shark. "Go home, Little Brother. We've got this," she promised.


	12. Chapter 12 - Home Is Where the Heart Is

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 12 – Home Is Where the Heart Is

The laboratory facility vanished from around them, replaced by the familiar bridge of the _Catastrophe_. "Magi, Momiji, you have the bridge. Yoh, go to the Infirmary and stay with Yugiri, in case she wakes up. Patty needs to spend some time with the other children as well. I'm going to take Andy to get cleaned up. We'll join you there when we're able," Kyousuke ordered.

The others complied, and Andy didn't argue: he desperately wanted to shower the memory of that place off him. He instinctively reached for the comforting presence of his limiter and froze. "My limiter! And the watch for Yugiri. They took them."

"We will contact our friends in B.A.B.E.L., and they will retrieve them. Yugiri will be much happier to have you home, than to have a new watch, and besides, she cherishes the one you gave her. It led her to you, and because of that, we knew you needed saving, we reached you in time."

Andy nodded.

"Come." Kyousuke teleported them both to his cabin. "You can use my shower, and wear the clothes Momiji got me for my birthday. They should fit you well enough."

"Thank you," Andy said simply. "The jacket, socks and boots are from one of those U.S.E.I . Agents, Lieutenant Ken McGuire. They might have homing devices concealed in them," he added, as he stripped them off.

"I can test them," Kyousuke said, lifting the jacket before Andy realized he shouldn't touch it, not with his psychometric ability, which most vividly showed images of recent use, especially where strong emotion was involved.

His face flushed in humiliation, but apparently his power prevented any damning images from being revealed.

"It's bullet resistant," Hiyoubu stated in surprise. "It's saved McGuire's life twice, and has been patched. And there are no homing beacons."

He lifted the boots. "Also specially crafted, to look like leather, but with reinforced toes with hidden spring activated knives, and bullet resistant as well. We will have to see these are returned to him."

Andy stripped off the scrub shirt, wincing at the pain, realizing his mistake when Kyousuke's face darkened in rage at the sight of his bruises.

"I should have stayed. I should have torn them apart," Kyousuke swore savagely.

"Don't leave me," Andy demanded, afraid he'd teleport back alone to punish them, but hating how it sounded like he was begging. He looked down, feeling his face heat in shame.

The last thing he expected was a gentle hand on his face, as Kyousuke titled it back up, and looked in his eyes. "Forgive me. You've had more than enough trauma. I'll leave you to shower in peace, but I promise I won't go off the ship. I'll be right outside the bathroom door. But I reserve the right to examine you injuries and make sure you're not in need of a doctor. I can have Doctor Sakaki here in moments."

"I'm surprised he came with the others, since he's a noncombatant. I'm surprised you were with them, with B.A.B.E.L. and the U.S.E.I., and whoever that third group was," Andy admitted.

"They are the Royal Psychics of Monarch. Princess Sophie dispatched them to join us in rescuing you, after launching a formal protest with both the Comerican government and the United Nations of the World. It seems she and her country have adopted you and Yugiri. You have both been ennobled and you have been knighted as well, and officially made Monarch's Ambassador to Japan," Kyousuke said with a rueful smile.

Andy's eyes widened in shock. "You mean that was true? What Colonel Grisham and the others were saying? Alright, I could understand working with Monarch then, and even B.A.B.E.L., but the U.S.E.I., after what they did? They sank the _Catastrophe_. They tried to kill us. They kidnapped Yugiri. And Grisham, they call him the ESPer Killer for a reason."

"I am well aware. Colonel Grisham is actually an old acquaintance. We first met during the Great War," Kyousuke stated, to Andy's confusion.

"But I thought he was Comerican. During World War II, wouldn't he have been an enemy?" Andy asked, as he stripped off his scrub pants, his face flushing, his hands awkwardly moving to cover his penis.

"He was. I'm the one who destroyed the bomber he was flying in, inadvertently releasing his psychic abilities with my attack, though I had no knowledge of it, at the time. We actually met again only a few months ago, quite cordially, as it turned out. As an ESPer, he is not my enemy. He is an honorable man. The ESPers he has attacked and killed have been his country's enemies. He is a soldier. And even I admit, the people he killed were deserving of it. They crossed certain lines. Hunting and killing children for sport. Torturing for pleasure. Raping women and men." He looked Andy in the eye at that last statement, and there was a challenge and a question there.

Andy's face flushed again. "They didn't. They beat me, and that doctor…" He shuddered. "He was very clinical about what he was after, but they reached me before he could… collect any samples.

"Can you wait in your bedroom for me, as you suggested? I'd like some privacy, to shower, and dress and… If you stay, it will only upset both of us. I just… I need some time and distance, before…" Andy trailed off lamely. He had no idea if Kyousuke had any interest is pursuing a physical relationship with him, or what his reaction to the family album had been. Clearly he didn't hate him, at least. The fact that Kyousuke had worked with former enemies to rescue him was actually pretty indicative of the opposite.

"Of course. But you'll need to tell me what you are thinking, what you are feeling. You are too good at hiding things from me, and you are the one person I cannot read," Kyousuke scolded.

Andy winced. "I'm sorry, about lying to you before, when I was undercover. I know I've apologized to you for it before, but you need to know, I'd never lie to you now, even to protect you. I need you to know you can trust me, always, with anything, everything."

"I do. I'll be outside, waiting," Kyousuke assured him.

Andy nodded and then closed the door. It was hard, doing so: it felt like he was pushing Kyousuke away, shutting him out, but he also desperately needed the privacy. His self esteem had already taken an enormous hit. Kyousuke seeing him battered and in pain as he washed wouldn't help either of them.

He used the toilet, wincing both in pain and disgust at the bloody urine, from his bruised kidney. He flushed and headed for the shower, turning the water on and up as hot as he could stand and entering the spray, hissing in pain as it hit his various cuts, but the heat felt incredible against his sore muscles and cold skin.

He picked up the bar of soap and washcloth he found and began lathering the dirt, sweat and dried blood off his skin, and the tactile memory of that horrible place along with it. Then he washed his wet and muddy hair and conditioned it, allowing the conditioner to sit while he just stood under the water, letting it work its magic on his sore and aching muscles, relieved his shivering had stopped.

"Andy? Are you alright?" Kyousuke asked in concern from the other side of the door.

"I'm fine! Sorry, I guess I'm taking too long," he apologized guiltily.

"It's fine. I just needed to hear your voice, to know you were alright, and not unconscious. You'd stopped moving: the water sounded different," Kyousuke explained.

"I'm almost done. I just need to rinse off and towel dry," Andy stated truthfully, and then he ducked his head under the spray, fighting a wave of dizziness when he moved too fast, bracing himself on the shower wall. _Damn_. Maybe Kyousuke was right to be concerned.

He breathed slowly and deeply, regaining his equilibrium, and moved more slowly as he finished. Then he turned off the water and headed for the towel.

Once he dried off, he dressed in his borrowed clothes, and then finger combed his hair, after towel drying it. He didn't usually blow dry it, and apparently, neither did Kyousuke. In some regards Kyousuke was still quite old fashioned, trapped in the past. The man still used bars of soap instead of the shower gel Andy was used to. The conditioner had been a welcome surprise.

Andy surveyed himself critically in the mirror, and stared, stunned, at his face, touching his finger under his left eye in disbelief and relief. His eye was golden amber again, the freakish black gone as if it had never been. He'd always hated having two different colored eyes, but the gold was definitely better than the black.

He shook his head at his vanity, catching himself against the edge of the counter when the world spun. He wasn't sure whether the dizziness was from a concussion, or exhaustion and exposure. His first instinct was to conceal it, because it was dangerous to reveal weakness, but he reminded himself he was among friends here, not people who would pounce on any weakness, like at the orphanage, or in the army, or on the island prison he'd been incarcerated in briefly, as part of his cover for infiltrating P.A.N.D.R.A.

Andy opened the door and was surprised to see Kyousuke on the bed intently studying the family album he'd sent him, instead of hovering by the bathroom door, as he'd expected. The sight of the book he'd spent so much time on made him nervous. Which picture had Kyousuke chosen? Coming to rescue him didn't indicate either way, other than to reassure him that, regardless of his choice, Kyousuke didn't despise him for asking the question.

Instead of rising, Kyousuke patted the bed beside him. "Come sit, Andy."

Andy walked over, his bare feet sinking into the plush carpet of Kyousuke's cabin, and he willingly joined him on the bed.

"This is the most thoughtful and certainly one of the most precious gifts I have ever received. Thank you, Andy," Hyoubu said.

"I'm glad you like it," Andy replied, aching to know which picture he'd chosen, because Kyousuke's words could easily be taken as the first words in a gentle refusal.

"You challenged me to discover a difficult truth about myself, about my future, but one that, upon reflection, was not truly difficult at all," Kyousuke said, as he flipped to the front of the book and showed him the picture of him as the patriarch beside… Andy's breath caught. It was the picture of him. And then Kyousuke's fingertips were on his cheek, turning his head to face him instead.

"Andy Hinomiya, in answer to your unconventional proposal, I would be honored to be your husband," Kyousuke said seriously.

Andy started, in surprise, because it hadn't actually been a proposal. Had it?

"Were you really so concerned what my answer might be, that you thought yourself safe from my wrath only with an ocean between us?" Kyousuke teased.

Andy shook his head. "No. I just couldn't wait to ask you in person. And a phone call… If I heard your voice, I wouldn't have been able to stay there, and I wasn't finished. I'm still not. I wasn't able to find out anything about my birth parents. I wasn't able to clear my name of the murder charge. I didn't really accomplish anything, other than making myself miserable and Yugiri upset, and… and she almost died, because I was being selfish. I never should have left."

"You would have always wondered, and been discontented. It is important to me, to all of us, that you stay by choice, because this is where you wish to be," Kyousuke argued, caressing his cheek.

"This is where I belong. I don't ever want to leave again," Andy swore.

"Good," Kyousuke replied, and then he closed the book, and set it down on the nightstand by the bed, freeing his hands. And then he kissed him, softly and gently.

Andy responded, carefully, in spite of his eagerness, because he hadn't ever kissed anyone before. Kissing required both affection and trust, and he'd never felt comfortable enough with anyone prior to this to risk trying.

It was surreal that less than an hour ago, he'd been a prisoner half the world away, both fearing and expecting to die, and now he was on the _Catastrophe_ , kissing Kyousuke. "Yugiri. I need to see her," Andy said, apology in his voice, as he pulled away, after breaking the kiss.

"Of course. I have slippers you can wear, for tonight. Tomorrow we will go shopping for clothes for you. You can put your things, once you purchase them, here in my cabin, which we can share, or in the one we set aside for you, which is to the left of mine. Magi is on my right, and Yoh is across the hall from him. They spend the nights together, now, but they each still need their own space. Their personalities are very different. But I think we are enough alike that we can share a room, if you desire to."

Andy's eyes widened. "You want me to move in with you?" he asked incredulously, completely unprepared for the sudden offer.

"Don't husbands usually live together?" Kyousuke teased.

Andy was speechless. It was what he wanted, what he'd scarcely dared dream was even possible, but for Kyousuke to so willingly give up his dream of seven decades for him was mind boggling. "Why?" Andy couldn't help asking.

"Andy, it took me nearly three quarters of a century to find you, months more to get you truly by my side, and I've nearly lost you six times already: you've been poisoned, shot twice, nearly blown up, nearly drowned, and I just rescued you from the clutches of the Comericans," Kyousuke stated, sounding mildly exasperated. "Granted, the poisoning was my fault, but the other four arguably were yours, and the last…" Kyousuke's face darkened with rage, the flip playfulness of his tone extinguished as if it had never been.

Andy put his hands on Kyousuke's shoulders, hiding a wince as he did so. "Kyousuke, calm down. I'm alright. Or will be," he amended, at Kyousuke's look of disbelief. "You could have just told me you love me, you know. It might have upset you less," Andy suggested daringly.

Kyousuke's suddenly guarded look was almost physically painful to Andy, but not entirely unexpected. Kyousuke didn't trust easily.

And neither did he. It was with some trepidation that Andy took a deep breath, and took the plunge. "I'd get down on one knee and propose to you properly, if I could do it without hurting myself. But hopefully this is at least a little better than a long distance proposal by freight letter."

He took Kyousuke's hands in his and looked him in the eye. "Kyousuke Hyoubu, you are the most strong-willed, powerful, passionate, fascinating, exhilarating and terrifying man I have ever met. I want to hold you and protect you and our whole family always, from every possible harm. I want to share my thoughts and dreams with you, and I want you to share those you choose to with me. I love you, and ask that you accept me as your husband."

Kyousuke was the one to look stunned now.

His lack of a verbal reply made Andy anxious. "Do you think tomorrow when we're buying me some clothes you could come with me to shop for rings? Unless you'd rather we just use our limiters to signify that we're together. You don't have to have a ring, if you don't want one. But I'd like to. If you don't mind me wearing one," Andy hedged awkwardly.

"Isn't it customary to allow the proposed groom to respond to the proposal?" Kyousuke asked, looking completely serious. "Or are you honestly afraid, the answer might be anything other than 'yes'? Although you didn't actually pose it as a question, did you?

"Andy Hinomiya, you are the most exasperating, loyal, and deeply moral man I have ever met. You have challenged me at every turn and continue to both amuse and amaze me daily. For someone as jaded as I am, that is no easy accomplishment. I just searched the world for you. I worked with my sworn enemies, both foreign and domestic, and crossed half the planet to find you, to bring you home. I love you and insist that you become my husband, so the entire world sees where you belong: by my side," Kyousuke commanded.

Andy opened his mouth automatically to protest his highhandedness.

"And in my bed," Kyousuke added with a smirk, which silenced Andy's protest.

Andy felt his face flush at Kyousuke's bluntness. And because he'd spent his entire teenage life surrounded by ESPer orphans and students who despised him, who he made physically ill and wouldn't come near him, who had only every touched him in anger, with their fists. He'd had similar experiences in the military. And then the U.S.E.I. had recruited him, and groomed him for his special assignment and their fraternization laws were strict.

He brushed his hair self-consciously from his face. "You're going to have to be patient with me, for that part. I… um… haven't been with anyone before," Andy admitted awkwardly, figuring it was better to get the humiliation over now, than later, when Kyousuke was no doubt going to aggressively pursue his desires.

Kyousuke froze, staring at him. Andy expected to be teased, or at best, to see a predatory smile light his face, but instead, the look of shock turned to one of gentle understanding. "Of course you haven't. Such an intimate act requires trust, and people who do not despise you. It takes a brave man to admit such a thing freely, instead of trying to bluff his way through it. So then, it appears we will have to muddle our way through together, relying upon what we have heard and read. Thankfully we will not be reduced to asking Yoh and Magi for instruction, because I would rather die a virgin than hear what either of those two might have to say, particularly concerning one another," Kyousuke stated, with a mock shudder.

Andy's eyes widened. He'd wondered before, suspected even, from Kyousuke's unconventional upbringing as a child psychic, and a human weapon during the War, one who lost all his companions almost overnight to violence, but to hear Kyousuke actually admit it was more than he'd expected.

"If you say 'I'll be gentle', I'll punch you," Andy threatened, only half joking, but mostly wanting to temper any awkwardness Kyousuke was feeling.

Kyousuke smiled. "My, my. Such violence. I did not know I was signing on for such a rough and tumble partner. This should prove interesting, considering Yoh's exceptional hearing. I foresee certain crewmembers vacating particular cabins in the near future."

The thought of Yoh listening to him and Kyousuke making love was both embarrassing and surprisingly exciting.

Something must have shown on his face, because Kyousuke frowned. "I do not share."

Andy held up his hands in appeasement. "Neither do I. Frankly, you're more than enough for any man, and Yoh is Magi's handful."

"Good. Now come. Let us check on Yugiri. I know you won't feel truly at home, that you won't be able to rest and recover, until you've seen she is here, that she is safe," Kyousuke proposed suddenly.

Andy ached to see her, but he was also afraid to. He didn't want to upset her, and just the thought of her being shot had him both enraged and terrified.

Unexpectedly, Kyousuke's arm slipped around his waist. "You are looking unwell. Worse than before. Are you dizzy? You look pale."

"Everything hurts, and I think I might have a concussion. But I was thinking about Yugiri, the men who hurt her. I want to hurt them back, but I couldn't risk you and the others being hurt by them," Andy admitted, in a moment of blunt honesty.

"No wonder Princess Sophie chose to ennoble you. You are already the most noble man I have ever met, that you would put our safety above vengeance" Kyousuke remarked.

"You did the same. You didn't insist upon staying, and you didn't let the others stay without you," Andy rebutted.

"I was trying not to spark the Psychic War you are all so afraid of, though I believe it is yet inevitable. Whether Kaoru is the catalyst, or someone else, unless there is significant change, soon, it will happen. In all honesty, I fear this new war might also be sparked by the assassination of a noble, whether it is Princess Sophie, or…" he trailed off, looking significantly at Andy.

"Me? You think I'll be targeted?" Andy asked, surprised.

"I fear all of Monarch will be. Thanks to their open door policy, they are admitting many psychics to their country who other countries view as dangerous criminals. It is only a matter of time before the entire country is seen as a threat, especially now, with their ties to P.A.N.D.R.A.," Kyousuke claimed.

"But for that very reason, any other country would be foolish to attack them," And insisted. "A single country with so many powerful psychics… Princess Sophie is a genius. Although I know that's not why she's helping us. She's a humanitarian first and foremost. To see psychics like us, though, as worthy of such consideration. She really is remarkable."

"I agree. Now come. Let's look in on Yugiri," Kyousuke urged. "But first, you need to wear this," he stated, holding out a limiter identical to the one that had been damaged and lost.

Andy wasn't sure whether it was the one the U.S.E.I. had tried to give him or not. Frankly, he didn't care. It was from Kyousuke, so he knew it was safe. He slipped the chain over his neck and turned the 7, damping his power.

"Much better," Kyousuke said in approval, touching his own limiter on his collar. "Now come."


	13. Chapter 13 - Everything Falls Apart

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

Chapter 13 – Everything Falls Apart

Andy allowed himself to be escorted out of Kyousuke's cabin and down the corridor. He had no idea where the new sickbay was located. He'd have to learn his way around their new ship.

It took longer than Andy expected to get to sickbay, not only because his injuries had him walking more slowly than usual, but because they were stopped every few corridors by P.A.N.D.R.A. members welcoming Andy home. It was overwhelming, having so many people care.

When they finally reached sickbay, Andy saw that Yugiri was asleep, or unconscious.

Yoh looked up from Yugiri's bedside, eying him critically. "You look better," Yoh said, satisfaction or maybe relief in his voice.

"Thank you for helping rescue me. They told me someone hacked the computer system, took out the ECMs. That was you, wasn't it?" Andy asked.

Yoh grinned. "Never met a computer I can't hack. Although you should see Irene. She's amazing. I'd never heard of a Technokinetic, before meeting her," Yoh enthused, awe and excitement in his voice.

"It's a pity Monarch got to her first," Kyousuke stated.

Yoh shook his head, looking suddenly grim. "No. She never would have joined us, and not only because she's a complete pacifist. The only reason she worked with the others on this mission was because it was a mercy mission, a rescue, and because she wanted to try to limit the violence, because we were involved, and she knows what we're capable of, when it comes to collateral damage."

Kyousuke's eyes narrowed in speculation, as Yoh's eyes flooded with guilt.

"She used to live in Venrice, until a few months ago. The reason she's in Monarch now is not only because she became homeless, because of us, but because she couldn't bear to stay. The night we took out that traitor and his men, we also destroyed a number of homes, hers included. She'd lived in that house since she was two. She lost everything: every photo and memento of her parents and sister who died in a boating accident six years ago. But that wasn't what made her leave. She lost all her neighbors, too, including most of her childhood friends. 132 civilians died that night, because of us. If she'd been home, she'd have died too. She was a psychic, and we almost killed her. But she was lucky.

"We killed children, some of them younger than Yugiri. Grandparents, parents, children, aunts, uncles, cousins. We wiped out whole families. How many others have we killed? When is it going to stop? How are we any different than those bastards that destroyed my and Momiji's village? How can we justify what we're doing?" Yoh demanded, his voice getting louder and louder, his hands clenching into fists, until he was shaking.

"You know why, Yoh. Because we are at war. For us, the Great War never ended. It became a series of smaller wars, each claiming ESPer lives. Civilians die during war. It is inevitable. Often they are purposefully slain, to try to force one side or another to capitulate. We have never attacked civilian targets outright, for that purpose, but we cannot limit our attacks or defense out of fear that a bystander might be injured or killed. It would cripple us," Kyousuke argued.

Yoh shook his head. "We don't have to be like that. Not anymore, not now that we have B.A.B.E.L., Monarch, even the U.S.E.I. helping us. We can't afford to have the world hate us any more, not when ESPers like us are finally being seen as people, as humans, worthy of respect and life and happiness. You got Hinomiya back, alive. Next time you might not. Last time they took Yugiri, to hurt you. Next time it could be Magi or Momiji or Patty or me," Yoh argued.

Kyousuke's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying? You are afraid? You wish to run?" he accused.

Yoh looked disgusted. "No. I'm saying P.A.N.D.R.A. has enough legal business investments that we can stay afloat, if we shift our focus. I should know: I'm financing them right now. I'm saying maybe we should take Princess Sophie up on that island she offered us, that we set up our own sovereign state in the protective shadow of Monarch. I think it's time we stop calling you Major, and start calling you Majesty, or Prime Minister, or whatever non-military title you can be comfortable with. The world has changed. I think it's time you and P.A.N.D.R.A. change along with it," Yoh challenged bravely.

Kyousuke stared at Yoh, their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills.

"Have you forgotten everything they have done? They have waged a war of extermination against us for decades, for three quarters of a century, for longer. All the witches who were ever burned, the seers and mystics who were tortured and killed, did you think they were really magic? We have been hunted relentlessly, blamed, targeted, for every failed harvest, every dead farm animal, every stillborn child throughout history. Just because there are more of us now, because we are strong enough to truly hurt them, doesn't mean we can stop fighting.

"Do you honestly believe we will ever be safe from them? Monarch is doomed to fall. If all else fails, the US and others will turn that entire country into another Hiroshima, another Nagasaki, especially if we were to take up residence beside them: we would paint an every larger target upon them. That is the fate that awaits your idealistic, pacifistic friend, and her foolish and deluded Princess," Kyousuke argued vehemently, a nimbus of black and pink psychic energy swirled around him.

"Kyousuke!" Andy barked, stepping between him and Yoh and Yugiri protectively. "You need to calm down. Yoh isn't saying anything I haven't thought since I joined you, since I saw the depths of darkness you were all capable of. I knew dozens of people died the night you handed me that sniper's rifle. The only way I can live with that guilt is because if I had done what I was told by you, if I had shot that man that night, it wouldn't have mattered in the least, because he wasn't really there, he was hiding, and nothing would have changed. But if I'd known what you had been planning to do, I would have blown my cover to stop you, I would have died to protect those civilians.

"You knew the general area he was hiding in. That's why you used me to suppress his power. You could have found a different way to discover his hiding place, you could have attacked him directly, instead of unleashing a show of force against him the way you did. I'll have to live with what we did. So will you. And Yoh. And Magi. All of us who allowed it. But I swore I'd never allow something like that to happen again.

"But then I left, and while I was gone, I saw what you did in Maldrid. You didn't just kill the soldiers who tried to kill you. You killed civilians in that hotel, without thought. Children likely died that night, too. At the very least, you made a number of new orphans. New enemies. Hundreds or thousands of more people who were watching the news and now think all ESPers are violent, vicious animals, who need to be put down like dogs. What happened is my fault, for not being there, to protect you, to stop you. But I'm back now. And if you want me to stay, and Yugiri and the others kids to be safe, Yoh is right. P.A.N.D.R.A. needs to change. We can't keep turning the world against us, especially not now, when for the first time they're sympathetic to us."

The fury and betrayal in Kyousuke's eyes was both terrifying and heartrending. Andy realized he'd gone too far, that he'd made it sound like an ultimatum, that he was threatening to leave. He hadn't meant to say that. He should have allowed Kyousuke time to think about what Yoh had said, instead of reinforcing it, making it sound like the two of them were conspiring against him, especially since Kyousuke was already jealous of how close he and Yoh were.

"Fine. If you both feel that way, then go. We don't need pacifistic cowards here, who are too afraid for their own lives that they are willing to lie down and die like dogs," Kyousuke snapped acidly.

"Kyousuke," Andy entreated, holding out his hand in supplication, in appeasement, desperately trying to made amends for his mistake.

Kyousuke's eyes narrowed. "You no longer have the right to use that name."

"Major," Yoh said, sounding desperate and frightened.

"I thought you no longer wished to call me that, and I have no use for mutinous subordinates," Kyousuke snapped. "Get out of my sight." His hand flashed out, and the ship vanished from around Andy.

His heart lurched in panic. He half expected to rematerialize fifty feet above the open ocean, if he reappeared at all, but thankfully Kyousuke didn't do something so final, though it might turn out to be just as deadly, he realized, when he heard the all too familiar and unmistakable sound of guns cocking, even as he held up his hands, trying to appear non-threatening, hissing as pain shot through his bruised ribs, as he realized he was surrounded by armed men and women.

"Put your weapons down!" a familiar, warm, regal voice commanded. "Don't you recognize Ambassador Hinomiya and Yoh Fujiwara? They are not here to harm me," she stated confidently.

"Princess Sophie?" Andy asked in confusion, even as he recognized her. He risked looking past her, more carefully at the men and women and room around him. He was in some kind of meeting room: there was a huge, ornate and glossy wooden table, surrounded by plush chairs, and a number of men and women in the uniform of Princess Sophie's Royal Guard. Andy belatedly realized Yoh was there too, looking dazed, that Kyousuke had teleported them both, apparently to Monarch.

"Ambassador Hinomiya. We received a report that you were rescued. We did not expect to see you in person, however," Princess Sophie stated, sounding intrigued.

"Forgive us for alarming your guards. We did not anticipate coming here," Andy stated ruefully.

"That bastard! $56 million, and he just throws me out?" Yoh fumed, snapping out of his daze. "He picked the wrong person to kick out. Let's see how far he gets when I freeze every penny of P.A.N.D.R.A.'s assets. I'll have him on his knees before morning," Yoh threatened, obviously infuriated.

But Andy realized Yoh was more hurt and frightened than angry. He knew how Yoh felt. After all they'd been through, he'd never expected Kyousuke to view him as an enemy again. "Yoh, you need to calm down. We can't escalate this. Princess Sophie, would we be able to borrow a phone? We need to warn B.A.B.E.L. that they may have some unexpected company in Comerica in a moment. As angry as he is right now, I'm afraid Kyousuke is going to be looking for a target to destroy, and I don't want your people, Minamoto, Sakaki, and the others caught in the crossfire," Andy said grimly.

Princess Sophie's eyes widened, and they she modestly turned away and discretely dipped her hand into the neck of her gown, and pulled out a cell phone, punching in a number and handing it to him. "Koichi Minamoto," she said, just as the phone was answered.

"Princess Sophie? Is something wrong?" Minamoto asked, sounding breathless and harried.

"It's Andy Hinomiya. Kyousuke might be visiting you at any moment. He's enraged, and will likely be completely irrational. If your teleporter can come pick me up, I can do my best to calm him down, or nullify his powers, or at least give him a different target, since Yoh and I are the ones he's currently angered with. We're in Monarch, a meeting a room, probably in or near the Palace," Andy stated, looking towards Princess Sophie for confirmation.

"My Council Chamber, the one Hyoubu and Director Tsubomi came to earlier today," the Princess supplied helpfully.

"I'm wearing a new limiter, one that Kyousuke gave me, and it's activated. If they don't know how to get here, I'm sure you have something of mine, from when you were looking for me, so your psychometrist can hopefully find me. If not, my clothes, watch and limiter were in my cell, the one across from Yamamoto," Andy supplied helpfully.

"I'm coming too," Yoh insisted. "That foolish Old Man would never forgive himself if he hurt you because of one of his stupid childish tantrums."

Andy shook his head. "And if he hurts you, Magi will never forgive him. I can't risk that."

"Yeah, well you're not the boss of me, Hinomiya," Yoh snapped, sounding like the child he'd accused Hyoubu of being.

Andy's sigh was cut short, as in the next moment, Kaoru Akashi, Shiho Sannomiya and Aoi Nogami appeared.

"You betrayed him again, didn't you!" Kaoru accused angrily.

"No. Yoh and I told him the truth, but he wasn't receptive to hearing it," Andy argued.

"What truth?" Kaoru asked suspiciously, glaring at both him and Yoh.

"That P.A.N.D.R.A. can't keep hurting and killing innocent people just because we're fighting for our lives. That we have to draw a line and refuse to cross it. That we have to be better people than our enemies. But what I said sounded like an ultimatum, like a threat that I would leave. I didn't mean it like that. I need to make sure that Kyousuke doesn't take out his anger on the people who took me, and that your people don't get hurt, if they try to get in his way," Andy replied honestly.

"He's telling the truth. And I'm the one who challenged the Major first. You can read my mind, so you're sure, but I need to come too. With both of us there as targets, he shouldn't hurt either one of us too badly," Yoh reasoned.

Kaoru's eyes narrowed speculatively, and then she shook her head. "No. We're only taking Hinomiya. Kyousuke's jealous of you. It would be a mistake, if you were with Hinomiya."

Andy's eyes widened. "How did you know about that?"

Kaoru shrugged. "Kyousuke told me."

"I don't care what he thinks!" Yoh snapped. "I need to help protect Irene and the others. That time we took you, and you saved that airplane full of people, I didn't understand then, I mocked you for it, but I understand now. I don't want to be a murderer. I'll kill someone attacking me or one of the others, in self defense, but I can't stand by and watch innocent people die anymore, instead of me, because of me, I can't be one of the ones killing them. Take me with you," Yoh pleaded.

Kaoru's eyes widened in surprise, and she looked at her two friends in silent inquiry, and both nodded.

"Kaoru! Hurry! Hyoubu's here!" Minamoto's yelled frantically over the phone.

The three girls grabbed the two of them, and the room vanished.


	14. Chapter 14 - Hope Kindles

**These characters are under copyright by Takashi Shiina, Rokurou Ogaki, Shogakukan, Sentai Filmworks and/or Kodansha Comics or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.**

 **A/N:  
This Chapter is for TheImmortalLegendaryPhoenix, blackkyu, viycta, and Miranda Amu, in gratitude for their reviews of my story, and for all those of you who favorited it as well.**

 **My apologies for the unanticipated 11 month hiatus between chapters of this story. Life got in the way, and then once I started writing again, other characters took my attention and wouldn't patiently wait their turn, as they should have. But I love this story and these characters – this is one of my favorite animes of all time, and that's saying something, considering the breadth of my interest and volume of shows I have watched – and I will finish this story. It just might take a while. Thanks for your patience! Kudos and Comments would be appreciated, so I know people are still interested in hearing the rest of this story. :)  
**

Chapter 14 – Hope Kindles

Minamoto cursed as the gun was yanked from his hands by an invisible force and exploded in a shower of metal parts. This wasn't like before, when Hyoubu attacked their headquarters and took Kaoru. He didn't look irrational, or out of control, though black and fuchsia swirls of power surrounded him just the same. This time, he looked furious, enraged but in a more controlled, more purposeful and deadly way. Whatever Hinomiya and Fujiwara had done, they had better be able to fix it fast, or the rest of them were about to pay for it.

"Stay out of my way, unless you wish to also become a handful of useless parts upon the floor," Kyousuke threatened, as an invisible hand wrapped around Minamoto's throat, squeezing just hard enough to enforce the threat, but not truly harm him.

Thankfully, the girls, Hinomiya and Fujiwara appeared, before Minamoto could see whether that was about to change.

"Kyousuke!" Kaoru reprimanded, and suddenly the pressure around his throat was gone.

"Don't test my patience, Kaoru. Take your fiancé and your friends and these two traitors and evacuate this facility, unless you wish to become part of the collateral damage I am infamous for," Hyoubu snarled, glaring at both Fujiwara and Hinomiya purposefully as he spoke. "Leave the prisoners. The staff, the soldiers, are mine."

"We're not going anywhere. Those prisoners are under our protection, and we have wounded who can't be moved," Minamoto rebutted, swallowing against the pain of that thought. If they left now, they might never be able to fix whatever had happened to Sakaki. The thought of his overconfident, mischievous, impetuous best friend remaining a comatose vegetable for the rest of his life was too horrifying to even contemplate.

And from what Sakaki had told them, just before he collapsed, McGuire would die if the bullet lodged against the wall of his heart shifted even a millimeter. It was only because of Sakaki that he'd made it safely onto the operating table. Lieutenant Ford was currently keeping her partner alive, redirecting the blood he was losing back into his circulatory system, but she was nearing exhaustion from the effort of moving a fluid with a higher density than water in such a controlled and precise manner, and there was no one to perform the surgery McGuire so desperately needed. They'd achieved their objective, they'd rescued the prisoners and arrested the monsters responsible, but the price had been too damn high, both for B.A.B.E.L. and the U.S.E.I.

"Wounded? Not Irene?" Fujiwara asked anxiously.

"No. She is unharmed and the Royal Psychics made it through with only a few minor injuries to their group. But McGuire and … and Sakaki…" Minamoto couldn't even finish his sentence.

"McGuire? What happened?" Hinomiya demanded, his voice unexpectedly thick with concern.

"He took a bullet to the chest, protecting his partner. It severed a vein and lodged near the wall of his heart, so he's bleeding badly, we can't move him, and we don't have anyone skilled enough left here to save him. The doctor we have prisoner told us he would only operate if we dropped all charges against him and released him, but I know Sakaki would prefer death over that, and there's no way I'd let that butchering monster near him anyway. McGuire's partner, Ford, is keeping him alive for now, we're flying in a surgeon, but the damned storm's started up again and…" Minamoto looked helplessly at Hinomiya, who had paled, he looked ill, while Hyoubu looked even more furious than before.

"It's my fault. He gave his bullet resistant jacket to me. What about Sakaki? Was he shot too?" Hinomiya asked, sounding just as concerned.

"No. We're not sure what happened. One moment he was ready to operate on McGuire, he'd moved him safely to the operating theatre, but then he just collapsed and… Colonel Grisham has confirmed he's catatonic, but he doesn't know why. At first we thought there might have been some hidden weapon in the room, a paralytic agent or gas or contact poison, or that maybe he cut himself, and some unknown drug entered his bloodstream that way, but there's nothing, and when Grisham read our prisoners' minds, he couldn't find any information, from either the doctor or the soldiers or support staff."

"They won't be able to keep secrets from me," Hyoubu threatened.

"No. We can't let you near them. You'll leave them all vegetables, and we need to publically try them for the atrocities that were committed here. Who knows how many other victims have died on that operating table?" Minamoto insisted.

"642," Hinomiya whispered. "He called me specimen 643. They probably didn't all die here but-"

"Shit! Damn it! No wonder Sakaki's catatonic," Yoh exclaimed. "He uses his psychometry to diagnose his patients, right? We saw it in the van, in Maldrid. If he was using his power, and accidentally touched the operating table, instead of McGuire, or maybe from holding the same scalpel they'd used before…"

Hinomiya looked like he was going to faint, and suddenly Hyoubu was at his side, supporting him. "They torture and degrade people, they cut them apart while they're bound and helpless, probably while they're conscious and aware, no anesthesia, no painkillers," Hinomiya stated, shuddering, horrified. "Sakaki is a doctor. Seeing that happen, _feeling_ it happen, to dozens, maybe hundreds of those victims… No wonder he's catatonic."

"Damn it! I should have realized," Minamoto cursed himself. He was supposed to be so brilliant, but the thought had never even occurred to him, he'd been so certain it was an intentional attack of some kind.

Hyoubu's lips pursed in determination. "Take me to Sakaki. He saved Magi's life and McGuire saved Andy. Neither of them is going to die here, their bodies or their minds. I refuse to allow it."

Minamoto felt cautious hope flare, not only because Sakai and McGuire might be saved, but because it seemed that Hyoubu had a new purpose, that his homicidal need for vengeance had been channeled into something constructive, instead of destructive.

"It's this way," Minamoto stated, as he began leading them, Hyoubu and Hinomiya beside him and the others trailing behind him.

Minamoto could see the tension increasing in Hinomiya the closer they got to the operating room.

"What's wrong?" Hyoubu demanded.

"Nothing. I'm fine," Hinomiya claimed.

Hyoubu stopped walking, pulling his supporting arm away and glaring at him. "You promised me you would never lie to me again," he accused furiously.

Hinomiya looked chagrined. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean… That room, where we're going… I was there. That's where McGuire, Ford and Grishom rescued me from. I was cuffed to the table, completely helpless and… When I said I was fine, I meant, I'll be fine, that I can handle it, going back."

"I need to kill them," Hyoubu stated bluntly, deadly venom in his voice, the black and pink swirling currents of energy which had begun to dissipate thickening with a vengeance.

"No. You need to save Sakaki and McGuire. The U.S.E.I and B.A.B.E.L. and Monarch need to see that the men here publically pay for their crimes, and the world needs to see those trials, they need to be publicized, to discourage others who think they can get away with atrocities like this," Hinomiya urged.

"That will depend upon whether McGuire and Sakaki can be saved. If either of those men cannot be, then everyone who took part in this systematic genocide against us will be executed, today, by me, and neither you, Yoh, nor the combined might of B.A.B.E.L., the U.S.E.I and Princess Sophie's Royal Psychics will be able to stop me," Hyoubu promised.

"I'm not your enemy, Kyousuke, but I am mankind's ally, as much as I'm yours. I won't let you kill bound and helpless prisoners, no matter what atrocities they might be guilty of. I don't want to fight you, but I will if you force my hand," Hinomiya stated bravely.

"You would lose, in a heartbeat. Literally. I can stop your heart with a thought, where you stand," Hyoubu threatened.

"You have control of my heart with or without your powers," Hinomiya countered.

"You continue to be exasperating, to challenge me at every turn," Hyoubu accused, but surprisingly, his expression softened, and the words sounded almost like an endearment, as the swirling energy currents significantly diminished.

"Because you are so strong-willed and powerful. But I will still do everything in my power to protect you and our whole family always, from every possible harm," Hinomiya replied.

Like Hyoubu's, Hinomiya's words seemed to have an alternate meaning from the obvious. Minamoto felt strangely like he was voyeuristically intruding upon a lover's tryst, as if he was overhearing a declaration of love and a solemn vow, even as the visible expression of Hyoubu's power completely vanished.

"Come. Colonel Grishom is no doubt as upset about his protégé as Minamoto is about his friend, and the Colonel is decades older. I will not risk his heart failing him," Hyoubu stated, placing his hand on Hinomiya's back to urge him forward.

Minamoto's eyes widened at the casual seeming touch. This wasn't a supporting arm, this was something far more telling. Hyoubu hated touching and being touched: many ESPers did, especially telepaths and psychometrists, and few ESPers who knew about Hinomiya's powers would voluntarily touch him.

Minamoto followed behind the two men, as Hinomiya led the way now, half his thoughts on them and half on Sakaki, as they proceeded down the corridor to the operating theater.

0 0 0

The closer they got to the operating room, the harder it was for Andy to continue on, to keep walking. He was dizzy and nauseas, and only partly because of what he was now sure was a concussion. He could feel every tortured muscle tense the closer they got to that horrible room, and he tried to force his breathing to remain steady. Kyousuke's temper was on a hair trigger today, after everything that had happened. He couldn't risk that tenuous control snapping. The last thing he wanted to do was fight him.

Colonel Grishom was on guard at the door. Andy knew he was roughly the same age as Kyousuke, and that there had been an unmistakable air of power and vitality surrounding him before, now notably absent. He looked as if he'd aged a decade or more in the hour or so that they'd been gone.

He didn't visibly tense when he saw them, but he blocked their path and was definitely assessing them. "Hyoubu. I didn't expect to see you here again."

"I understand McGuire is critically injured. I am here to save him, and that annoying doctor, Sakaki, as well," Kyousuke replied.

"I used my telepathy to copy Doctor Sakaki's unique ability to diagnose people psychometrically, to see if I could help Ken, but that level of psychic surgery is beyond me. I've at least been able to determine what's wrong with your man Sakaki, though, Minamoto. He accidentally absorbed a number of horrific images when his hand brushed against the operating table, while he was determining the best approach to reach the bullet without damaging Ken's heart. It's fortunate that you're here, Hyoubu. You're the only one I know strong enough to remove those memories, or erase or suppress them, to get him on his feet again," Grishom stated solemnly.

"And I will. I owe the doctor, a life for a life. That is what we suspected might have happened. It is good to know that is truly the cause. But to remove only that tiny portion of his memory without impacting the rest is a painstaking process, one that will take time McGuire does not have. Instead, I will operate on McGuire, if you will allow it. I have done similar surgeries before, many times, whenever one of our people or those ESPers we rescue are injured. Once he is out of danger and recovering, then I will heal Sakaki," Hyoubu magnanimously offered.

"Mary, help's here. I trust Hyoubu to save Ken," Grishom stated, without hesitation, as he stepped back into the room, and waved them inside.

Andy took a bracing breath and entered, his skin crawling as he saw the familiar room. McGuire was laid out on the operating table, but not strapped to it as he had been. His pale blue shirt had been cut away from his chest. Andy was confused for a moment at the absence of blood on the fabric, until he realized that Ford had apparently siphoned even the blood from his clothes and sent it back into his body. McGuire's tan skin was distressingly pale.

Ford nodded tersely and wordlessly to Grishom's statement, to their arrival, without looking away from her partner. She looked almost as bad, her formerly rich caramel skin almost grey with fatigue, her brow glistening with perspiration, her forehead crinkled in concentration, her hands hovering over McGuire's chest, as she used her power to redirect the flow of his blood.

"Keep doing what you're doing," Kyousuke instructed. "With you concentrating on the blood flow, it will be easier for me to concentrate on the bullet, and rebuild the damaged blood vessels and tissues. But if you begin to falter, I will assist you or take over."

Relief and gratitude flooded Ford's face, and cautious hope.

Without further word, Kyousuke went to McGuire's side and focused his attention on him, while the rest of them watched breathlessly.


End file.
